Recent Titles in Family Life through History Family Life in 17th- and 18th-Century America James M. Volo and Dorothy Denneen Volo Family Life in 20th-Century America Marilyn Coleman, Lawrence H. Ganong, and Kelly Warzinik Family Life in 19th-Century America James M. Volo and Dorothy Denneen Volo

and the Laboring Family
. 3. Fathers and Mothers Children and the Family Religion and the Family Families. Husbands and Wives. The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages The Family in the Medieval West The Family in the Byzantine East The Family in the Islamic World The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
vii 1 3 25 47 63 79 93 95 125 151 171 193
Section II: The Environment of the Family in the Middle Ages 6. 5. 7.Contents
Introduction: Investigating the Medieval Family Section I: Defining the Family in the Middle Ages 1. 8. Labor. 4. 9. 2. The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family Grooms and Brides. 10.

or in discussions of medieval legal systems in the context of marriage and inheritance law.Introduction: Investigating the Medieval Family
The family in the Middle Ages is a large and complex topic. included many different kinds of cultures. All four cultures of the medieval world will be considered in this volume. always existing in tandem with them. when families were discussed at all. queens. Moreover. operated symbiotically with these other three cultures. Three cultures dominated the medieval world: the Roman-Germanic culture of Western Europe. that of medieval Jews. and the Muslim world of the southern Mediterranean. but often quite separate as to customs and practices. and central Asia. from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Seas. Spain. Family history appeared only in the context of political events. a fourth culture. and from the Atlantic coast of North Africa to the Central Asian Mongolian Khanate of the Golden Horn. In addition. the only ones mentioned tended to come from the most elite social classes: the aristocracy and the families of kings. and
. The medieval world was multi-ethnic. and occupied a broad range of geographical regions. How Historians Look at the Medieval Family Until quite recently—the last fifty years—medieval historians rarely discussed the experiences of medieval families as a topic in its own right. such as the political maneuvering of royal dynasties in western Europe or the Byzantine Empire. the Byzantine Empire of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean.

This anthropological approach encouraged historians to look at families as culturally determined systems. and Rome. the shape of medieval agricultural fields. The second element that changed attitudes about studying the medieval family was the expansion of archaeology into the uncovering and analysis of medieval remains. Greece. Medieval artifacts were considered the leftovers of an inferior civilization. especially after World War II. More recently. the focus of archaeologists was entirely on the ancient world. Armed with these innovative methods and approaches. historians began to find family life in the Middle Ages more interesting and worthy of being studied. Local historical societies in European and Middle Eastern countries began to raise funds to preserve crumbling castles. Families could be discussed as centers of production. Medieval remains were uninteresting to archaeologists who studied the classical world. If family structure is affected by the larger culture. and evidence of medieval peasant villages. some historians began to use approaches found in the study of anthropology to develop ways of looking at families in the pre-modern past.viii
Introduction
emperors. Dramatic discoveries of treasure hoards. Anthropological approaches also provided historians with methods that could be used fruitfully when studying the medieval family. which contained fabulous artifacts as well as the body of a seventh-century king of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia. such as the 1939 discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. Firstly. were glamorous. as systems for defining social roles. rather than merely as collections of related people. Sweden. then the ways in which families operate and interact are worthy of study. especially Egypt. Two elements changed historians’ attitudes about studying the medieval family. They merely got in the way of excavations of ancient sites. As a result. so too did interest in preserving the physical remains of the medieval past. the unearthing of the so-called bog men in Ireland. For nearly two centuries. such as those found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen. Archaeologists began to use the aerial reconnaissance photographs taken during the war to identify sites of lost and forgotten castles. Ancient artifacts. which are so dense that air cannot penetrate to the lower layers—has given archaeologists incredible
. The treasures of classical Athens and of the so-called glorious Roman Empire were considered the artifacts of superior civilizations. as structures that mirror the larger culture in which the family is embedded. The urban middle classes and the rural and urban poor were scarcely considered as appropriate subjects for study. and England—ancient and medieval people whose bodies are preserved because they fell or were buried in peat bogs. made medieval archaeology more glamorous. As interest in the social culture of the Middle Ages began to grow. a huge amount of material remains from the Middle Ages have disappeared under the bulldozers of modern cities and the earth scrapers of nineteenth-century archaeologists in search of ancient treasures.

Sources for the History of the Medieval Family The sources for the history of the family vary widely as to time. as the Victorian-era ones did. families are seen as operating contrary to the religious ideal. for example. Religious texts. has lagged considerably behind research on western European families. especially in the last fifty years or so. such as the extensive records of the courts of common law in England and the documents of the Cairo geniza (the storage warehouse used by medieval Jews to house damaged Torah scrolls and family archives. They recognize that family structures are often fluid. since such a vocation removed these daughters from the family’s orbit of appropriate marriage partners. depictions of the Holy Family. As a result. such as in the stories in Christian texts of female saints whose families were resistant to their religious vocations. transfers of property (sometimes by means of wills and testaments). a lot about peasant families in late medieval England. which was discovered in a suburb of Old Cairo in the late nineteenth century). Since the historian’s craft focuses on mining these kinds of primary sources. This new interest. the lives of common people in the Middle Ages have become much more interesting to historians of the period. combined with new ways of looking at written sources—such as the use of statistical evidence to develop analysis and form conclusions—has led to a burgeoning in the field of medieval family history. Thus. Legal texts. one that reinforces the ideals of the religious perspective. No longer do historians assume. our understanding of family life in the Middle Ages is both incomplete and fragmented. similar work is lacking for the Byzantine and Islamic regions. We know. the rise of urban communities. Although much information has come to light for the medieval west by picking through legal records. especially in the West. emphasize
. and economic transactions. Interest in families in the Islamic and Byzantine cultures of the Middle Ages. but historians are beginning to address these populations as well. and that changing economic circumstances. and the body of rabbinic literature known as responsas present families as part of the socio-religious system. popular selections from the Bible. level of detail. and availability. sermons. especially for western Europe. such as saints’ lives. and changing social statuses can all alter the family dynamic. but almost nothing about Russian peasant families in the same era. Occasionally. and similar texts from the Islamic and Jewish cultures such as the Quran and the body of interpretive work connected to it. Different kinds of sources provide different windows on the medieval family. as well as Jewish families. that medieval families were just like ones in the nineteenth century. the ways in which such records are interpreted has also changed over the years.Introduction
ix
opportunities to investigate everything from what medieval people ate to the chemicals they used to dye cloth and tan leather.

and individuals are distributed to new families. Finally. All of the sources mentioned will be used in this book. but even in those circumstances the structure of the family is taken for granted. such as chronicles and annals. whenever possible. tapestries. Literary texts. Conflicts within and among families do certainly appear in the legal records. the lady and her devoted knight must sneak around her husband—and the knight’s lord—in order to consummate their love. to compare different views: none of this information is automatically obvious in most textual narratives. The use of sources in uncovering information about the medieval family is often more interpretive than in more obvious political histories. Secondly. Firstly. such as western European Romance literature. or dissolution. This kind of work. except in those cases where the author of the chronicle was commissioned to write the family’s history. My approach operates on several levels. since families are most typically depicted as strategic organizations by means of which land. statuary.x
Introduction
family continuity. to weigh the agenda of the author in depicting family associations in particular ways. analyzed. as will the work of many other historians. and so forth—usually depict families as static entities limited to two generations. the lack of sources for areas beyond western Europe have made true equality almost impossible to accomplish. requires historians to identify the kinds of approaches they use to interpret the sources with an eye to illuminating the family in the Middle Ages. stained glass windows. It is usually necessary to tease out information about the medieval family. as is the mutual consent of all its members. but also present families as cohesive structures whose integrity was necessary to the maintenance of public order. I have read. tend to view only elite families—mostly the royalty and nobility—and only in times of conflict. often present families as obstacles to be overcome: the hero must fight the father of his lady-love in order to win her. frescos. Dating the Middle Ages Medieval historians identify the beginning and end of the Middle Ages in different ways depending on the topic and the geographical area under
. Historical texts. and so on. paintings. When information has simply been impossible to obtain. although I have attempted to provide as equal an emphasis as possible on all four medieval cultures. I have both discussed how the lack of information has an impact on the historical analysis and have suggested ways in which historians speculate about topics when they do not have much information about them. a significant amount of material presented in this volume comes from direct investigation of the primary sources that most historians use in writing history. then. visual sources—illuminated manuscripts. moveable property. Thirdly. death. and incorporated the work of several different historical perspectives on a given topic in order to provide the broadest possible overview.

conquered Constantinople and replaced Byzantine rule with a Muslim Turkish empire that survived until 1918. For them. Sultan Mehmet II. Generally. Arabia was an independent region that had significant economic and cultural ties to both the Byzantine Empire and the empire of the Sassanid Persians. the French term medieval (meaning middle or in-between) was coined in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to refer to what the intellectuals of that era felt was a dark age between the glories of the Roman period and the rebirth (i. now operates as the world’s standard dating system). Historians of medieval Islamic culture use an entirely different set of criteria for determining their historical periods. in part because the Columbian expeditions to the New World beginning in 1492 threw the Old World into a dizzying cultural tailspin and partly because the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther. which was launched in 1517. historians no longer believe that the period between the end of the Roman Empire in the west and the Italian Renaissance were dark. These days. in terms of religion. began to have visions that he believed came from God. the strict periodization of the political historians is not all that relevant. when the permanent establishment of independent kingdoms by Germanic rulers throughout western Europe seems to have been accomplished. however. In this year Muhammad established the first community of Muslims at the city of Medina in Arabia. The first year of the Islamic calendar is the year 622 of the Christian calendar (which. Family structures are
. Thus. nevertheless. when a wealthy 40-year old Arab merchant living in the city of Mecca. the truly Byzantine period begins with Justinian and ends in the year 1453. The end of the medieval period in the west is disputed. because of European imperialism.Introduction
xi
study. The religion of Islam began in the year 609. the first centuries of Islam should be termed the early period. renaissance—another French term) of classical culture in fifteenth-century Italy. At the time. marked the end of the unity of the church of Rome. Byzantinists consider the re-founding of the Greek city of Byzantium as the Roman city of Constantinople in 327 to be the beginning of a transitional period that ended with the death of the emperor Justinian I in 565. medieval Islam will follow the conventions of most historians of Islamic culture: the period from roughly 622 to roughly the year 1600 (978 in the Islamic calendar). For the purposes of this book. which marked the beginning of the long decline of the Ottoman Empire following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566. when the leader of the Ottoman Turks. named Muhammad. When discussing the medieval family. Most historians of the medieval west date the beginning of the Middle Ages to around 500. but generally the year 1500 is used as a stopping point. The terms Middle Ages and medieval are themselves artificial categories: middle how? In fact.. Historians of the Byzantine Empire in the eastern medieval world work under a different dating convention. the name stuck.e.

xii
Introduction
remarkably resilient and long-lasting. Each chapter addresses its particular topic in a comparative way. How This Book Is Organized This study of family life in the Middle Ages is organized into two major sections. and the existence of untraditional or atypical family structures. All four cultures’ experiences are looked at together. This thousand years will in fact be the focus of this volume. Maps and illustrations also appear when necessary to illustrate particular issues. Each chapter focuses on a specific element of family life: domestic space. a glossary of terms and a list of recommended further reading appear at the end of the volume. Finally.
. the role of religion. and social change occurs only gradually. Therefore. the Byzantine Empire. the ways in which roles of individual family members were defined. each region or culture under study—western Europe. the experiences of children. Section II is divided topically. The intersections between law and definitions of family. the Muslim world. The emphasis in Section I is structural. it is possible to discuss family life in all these cultures’ medieval periods in the context of the ten centuries between 500 and 1500. In Section I. and the Judaic culture—will be introduced in separate chapters. and the status of women in the family are the kinds of issues discussed. work. In addition. these chapters are prefaced by one that outlines family structures in the later Roman Empire and the ways in which late Roman culture affected and influenced medieval family systems. relations between husbands and wives. the criteria for determining lawful heirs.

so that the reader is aware of some of the political and social issues that surrounded changes in family structure. Byzantine. to contract marriages. The first chapter acts as an historical introduction to the rest of the section. in that it focuses on family structure in the Roman Empire and how the Roman models influenced family models in the medieval period. All of these chapters discuss not only the issues of the intersection between law and family structure. but also act as introductions to many of the issues that are discussed in greater detail in the chapters of Section II. the roles of men and women in the family. All civilizations have legal definitions of what constitutes a family and how membership in the family affects the ability to inherit property. and the ways in which different generations in a family interact. The following four chapters focus each on a specific medieval culture: western Christian. Islamic. and to gain guardianship of children. Historical context is also included in each chapter where relevant.I Defining the Family in the Middle Ages
The chapters in this section focus on the ways in which the different cultures defined the structure of the family.
. and Jewish. all civilizations identify the age at which children are considered to be adults. In addition.

.

whose members were elected by the male citizenry. did not occur until Octavian.c. the adopted son of Julius Caesar. to an Empire ruled by a single autocrat who passed his title to his successor through hereditary and dynastic succession.E. whose members were appointed by virtue of their election to the position of consul. from Augustus to Justinian I (22 B.) In order to discuss the family in the later Roman Empire. As early as the late fourth century b. and the isle of Britain. and an Assembly.e.E.–565 C.
. it is necessary to provide a brief overview of the political and economic history of the empire from the reign of the first official Imperator Augustus to that of the emperor Justinian.e. The borders of the empire were vast and difficult to defend. was granted the title of Imperator Augustus—supreme military commander both inside and outside the boundaries of Rome itself.1
The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
Introduction: The Roman Empire in Transition. but even that propaganda was abandoned by later successors of his own family. the power of the Roman Empire grew as its territory expanded to encompass the entire Mediterranean. the Roman Republic controlled territories it had conquered and absorbed as imperial acquisitions. the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. The political transformation of Rome from a Republic governed by a Senate. whose reign marks the transition from Roman to Byzantine culture. western Europe. Over the next two hundred years or so.. Augustus maintained the fiction that the Senate was still the supreme political body. Its culture was eventually a hybrid of customs.C. which ruled to the year 68 c.

and religions that owed a great debt to the Greek culture that had traveled with Alexander the Great during his own conquests in the fourth century b. As can be
.. Indeed. as well as Aramaic and Coptic (the language of the Egyptian peasantry).. People in the southern and eastern Mediterranean spoke mostly Greek. Managing both the population inside the Empire and those just outside it presented huge problems for emperors. The army itself was difficult to control. resident aliens who were used as military troops by the Romans but who were not headed by a Roman commander) and charged with defending Roman territory against other Germanic groups. Latin was the official language of the Empire: the language of its laws and administration. Made up of troops from vastly different territories within the Empire. The succession of emperors had always been a problem. Another problem the Roman Empire faced involved people living just over its borders. the Roman army began to influence the transfer of power from one imperial dynasty to the next. is known as the Year of the Four Emperors. In Europe they spoke a number of different Celtic and Germanic languages. cracks began to appear in the political and military institutions that guaranteed the stability known as the Pax Romana—the Roman Peace.e. The easiest solution came to be to invite Germanic groups to police their own borders: certain tribes were invited into imperial territory as so-called federated troops (that is. and who were being pushed from behind as more Germanic groups migrated into the European continent: a more or less continuous stream beginning in the second century c. who formed alliances with some Germanic “tribes” and who eventually spilled into the European world in the sixth century. Only the western border—the Atlantic Ocean—was secure.e.. In North Africa. The Germanic groups were themselves being pushed by Hunnic tribes (Mongols from central Asia) from central Asia. along the Rhine and Danube Rivers to the Black Sea. especially Germanic peoples who were clustered along the Rhine and Danube rivers. comparatively few people in the Roman Empire spoke Latin as their native or first tongue. Even as the Roman Empire expanded and its administration became more effective. the group that had founded the city of Carthage. the Empire was bordered by desert and the empire of the Sassanid Persians. From the first century c. it patrolled a land border that in the north went from the Baltic Sea.4
Family Life in the Middle Ages
traditions. who also occupied the eastern border. The period between dynasties tended to be chaotic—the year 68 c. their administrations. As a result. in a second great wave of migration. the result of the Alexandrian conquests.c. the army was huge and was overseen by powerful generals. The language of most of its population. however. for instance—and every successive dynasty struggled to sustain its power and influence while still keeping the army occupied and politically disengaged. peasants spoke Semitic dialects based on ancient Phoenician.e. was usually Greek. many of whom had imperial ambitions themselves.e. and the army. In the south.

.Europe in 1360.

Constantine (r. Diocletian divided the empire into two halves—the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West—and further divided these halves into provinces called dioceses governed by imperial officials called vicars. even the coinage losing its value because of the adulteration of the silver and copper used to make the coins. and the pressures on the troops came to a head: the cracks in the imperial system became chasms. When Alexander Severus. 306–337). as his own personal capital. a strong man with an unlikely background—his grandfather had probably been a freed slave—who had risen through the army ranks to a leadership position was able to retain the imperial title conferred on him by his troops: Diocletian (r. but by the end of the fourth century.6
Family Life in the Middle Ages
imagined. Diocletian chose Galerius to succeed himself and Maximian chose Constantius. or Augustus. did not survive. the last man standing was Constantius’s son. He also appointed a co-emperor to rule one half of the empire: Maximian. Diocletian entered the job of emperor with a well-thought-out plan. the ambitions of army generals. although its effects would not be felt in the heart of the empire until the fourth century. in perpetuity. Death and dissatisfaction with the system after 304 led to another short civil war. the last member of the Severan dynasty. This system probably saved the empire for at least another generation. This system was called the Tetrarchy (after the Greek word tetra. at the mouth of the Black Sea. died in the year 235. shoemakers and wheelwrights had to be shoemakers and wheelwrights. the problems with imperial succession. Constantine would take Diocletian’s social. renaming it Constantinople. who ruled the less wealthy western half. however. troops murdering newly declared emperors. Diocletian also reissued the coinage. and administrative reforms and rework them into an imperial system that survived for hundreds of years after his death. The legalization of Christianity. Although provincial governments centered in the Roman towns known as municipia tried to maintain order on a local level. In 284. the imperial administration falling into tatters. meaning four). known as Caesars. Each co-emperor. the disruption of the Pax Romana became obvious to all. What followed was fifty years of virtual anarchy. and so forth. economic. Constantine is best known for two specific acts: his legalization of Christianity in 313 and his rebuilding of the ancient city of Byzantium. it would become
. which had become an increasingly popular religion in the upheavals of the third century. but his system seems to have worked and many of his innovations were preserved by his successors. 284–304). Diocletian might have been an autocrat. The Tetrarchy. When it was more or less over by 314. standardized weights and measures. which he soon began to implement. chose other generals as their adopted sons and successors. Unlike his predecessors. with generals being declared emperor by their troops. had few immediate effects. the system did not work all that well. and passed a law stating that sons had to follow the professions of their fathers: farmers had to remain farmers.

According to the earliest written legal code. Although he spoke Latin. As the center of the Empire shifted eastward. The traditional Roman family could in some ways be considered a peculiar institution. with the past but a nostalgic reflection. the Roman Empire experienced dramatic and far-reaching changes. the importance of keeping the western empire intact faded. Everything about Justinian’s reign looked forward to the Byzantine world that would follow him. but only in its Byzantine incarnation. centered at Constantinople. Between Constantine’s death and the reign of Justinian (r. It shared its patriarchal and paternalistic (both terms refer to different aspects of a male-dominated culture) qualities with virtually every family structure in the ancient world (the exception perhaps being Egypt). Justinian’s reign marks the transition between the Roman and Byzantine eras in the history of Rome. was in some ways even more important to the preservation of the Roman Empire: the Empire would continue to exist in the form of the Byzantine Empire. and Celtic. over foster children and wards. re-founded in 327 as the New Rome. The Traditional Roman Family The Roman Empire was a unique phenomenon in the history of the world and the Roman family was no less unique. each with its own particular family and community structures. Semitic. until 1453. including Italian. North African. the center of his empire was the Greek city of Constantinople. and eventually Italy were invaded by Germanic groups who established independent kingdoms in each. The last Roman emperor of the west. and especially over their wives. was deposed in 476 and replaced by Germanic overseers until Theodoric the Ostrogoth was declared king of the Ostrogoths in Italy. Germanic. the teenager Romulus Augustulus. The Roman way of life would survive in the east. it is amazing to consider how effectively the Romans were able to export variations on their own traditional ideas about the family into the far flung regions of their empire. both male and female. the western half was ultimately lost to other groups of conquerors. the paterfamilias (literally the father of the household) was the absolute monarch.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
7
the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Spain. the Law of the Twelve Tables. when the city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. Although Justinian had ambitions to reunite the Mediterranean parts of the Roman Empire. North Africa. The city of Constantinople. 527–565). Greek. but it went far beyond other cultures’ notions when it came to the role of the patriarch. led by Sultan Mehmet II. over the servants and slaves. In the traditional Roman family. ruling over everyone: not only his immediate family. but over married sons and their wives and children. Disobedience on the part of the familia (the larger household comprising
. the paterfamilias had the power of life and death over all his children at birth. Gaul. Since the Empire was comprised of many different cultures. Britain.

and social networks that were valuable to the families arranging them. cooperation. Second. marriage promoted political. even though Roman legal structures made Roman families appear to be radically different from those of other ancient cultures. Romans viewed marriage and procreation of legitimate children as social obligations and people who failed to honor these obligations were considered selfish and anti-social. as will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter). Roman marriages were always arranged by parties other than the bride and (often) groom. girls and women were only temporary members of their natal families—their families by birth—and all associations with their parents and siblings were. in part because of the ease of divorce but more importantly because of the dangers of childbirth and the sometimes significant age difference between spouses. The parents and sometimes guardians were in charge of arranging marriages. which made them effectively the legal daughters of their husbands. Like that in other ancient cultures. at least in legal terms. economic. once marriage with manus became less popular (during the later years of the Republic. Finally. Third. generational differences between spouses could result in children of multiple generations. and conflict and this range is not often illuminated in the legal terminology of the Roman jurists (specialists who wrote decisions based on Roman law). Similarly. men and women often experienced multiple marriages because their partners died. Wives were brought into the family through a process known as marriage with manus.1 First. sundered when they married into another domus. affection. Fifth.8
Family Life in the Middle Ages
all the people under the rule of the paterfamilias but especially referring to the slaves in the household) could lead to death. therefore. Fourth. What this description demonstrates is that. in broad outlines they were quite similar to most of their ancient neighbors. with younger children being similar in age to the offspring of older children—the younger children and the older grandchildren could be the same age. girls born into the domus (the Latin word meaning “house” but also referring to the kinship unit we would think of as a family) were distributed to other familiae (or. Changes in Marriage from Republic to Empire The traditional power of the paterfamilias and the exclusion of brides from their natal families that is so absolute in Roman law seems not to
. The historian Keith Bradley has invented a kind of road map that helps to model the Roman family during its eight hundred-year history. marriages became more easy to dissolve. domus) through marriage with manus. This meant that. Families experienced a broadly diverse range of membership. Roman marriage and the structure of the Roman family was male dominated and was based on the need to develop and foster social and political networks rather than on the modern-day ideal of two individuals creating a loving partnership between them. at least under law. more accurately.

The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
9
have actually operated in such extreme ways in day-to-day interactions. something that.c.3 By the time of the so-called Social Wars (in the second and first centuries b. with wives retaining at least nominal control over anything they might inherit from their natal families and their dowries (the property and cash a bride brought to the marriage) were not allowed to be used to pay the husband’s debts or frittered away without the husband being assessed a penalty. his famous episode of the rape and suicide of Lucretia involves her biological father. Marriage without manus certainly had advantages for both parties. Tiberius. Titus Livy’s Early History of Rome. then this episode would have made no sense to them: clearly.). For instance. when a woman would be forced to abandon her children. connected to her new domus but not a part of it. fathers could compel a married couple to divorce. Spurius Lucretius. especially in cases of divorce. as has been demonstrated in some depth by historians such as Suzanne Dixon. Finances were kept largely separate.e. so they had people to whom they could go in cases of abuse or neglect. replaced by a form known as marriage without manus. Unlike marriage with manus. Wives had the added protection of continued intimate and legal connections with their fathers and siblings. Marriage without manus had drawbacks as well. For one thing. Since mothers were not considered the legal parent of their children. because wives could not be returned to their natal families. which made divorce almost impossible to obtain. marriage without manus was easy to dissolve should spouses decide to divorce. the emperor Augustus did with both his biological daughter. since they were provisioned from their own fathers’ estates. mothers were not considered to be related to their children: all children born in a marriage without manus were considered to be part of the husband’s lineage. in fact. Husbands did not have to worry about setting a large portion of their estates aside for their wives. in the first-century historian. Most importantly. They also had the bonus of political and social associations with their wives’ families. particularly for the women involved. There is evidence that this
. and his adopted son.2 If Romans were used to daughters disappearing from the family’s associations. indeed. Although this legal stipulation might be seen to have dire emotional consequences. this also had legal advantages. Livia. they eventually could be appointed as guardians of their own biological children in their husbands’ wills. Julia. the practice of marriage with manus was going out of fashion. though. though. the biological son of Augustus’s wife. not that of the wife. as one of the principal actors who revenges the crimes against Lucretia committed by Sextus Tarquinius. the bride retained her biological and legal associations with her natal family and entered her husband’s household as a kind of resident alien. the practice of marriage with manus was not likely to have resulted in the cutting off of all ties to a bride’s natal family. ones that might have been lost in the earlier system. In this form.

occur with increasing frequency over the course of the Roman imperial era. especially those of Greece and the Hellenistic kingdoms in Asia and North Africa. divorce. 527–565) decided to compile and standardize all of Roman law. the inclusion of a wife. legitimacy. the structure of the family was changing. In addition. since daughters could be retained as members of the familia and so could be used for political and dynastic purposes in ways they could not have been before. and the Roman Family Roman law was the most highly developed system in the ancient world. the freeing of them from the power of the paterfamilias entirely. not the head of the household into which she married—changed the family dynamic in several ways. but it is important to note here that this connection between written law and models of the family influenced the debate about family structures and legitimacy in the medieval period and beyond.4 It is likely that the role of the paterfamilias also changed over time and was affected by this new and popular marriage style. When the Emperor Justinian (r. someone in the household who was not bound to the paterfamilias—the bride was subject to her natal paterfamilias. inheritance. From the beginning of the rule of Augustus. at the time when Rome was acquiring an empire. the process took six years (from 529 to 535) and about two dozen people to complete. Wives might have been able to have more say in the ways in which their dowries were used by their husbands. These will be discussed in more detail in the following chapters. Indeed. These issues became more rather than less important as the Roman Empire absorbed different cultures. becoming somewhat less peculiar in the eyes of its neighbors and more like them. Thus. Sons became more independent and eventually the law of patria potestas (the authority of the father) changed. in fact. restricting the power of the paterfamilias to interfere in his sons’ marriages and even giving both sons and daughters the possibility of manumission. which suggests that Roman men and women used these legal definitions of marriage and relationship to their advantage. the emperor (a term that actually designated the ruler’s military function outside the city of Rome itself) was referred to as Pater
. and this rhetorical connection was strengthened during the Empire. marriage.10
Family Life in the Middle Ages
did. it apparently became so common that the emperor Theodosius I made a mother’s guardianship of her children more or less a legal requirement when no specific instructions regarding the surviving children existed. The Romans equated the family with the State. and they shaped Byzantine and western Mediterranean notions of family quite profoundly. the Roman State. A great deal of Roman law is focused on the family: on the powers of the paterfamilias. Daughters might have been valued more as members of the family since they would not be leaving it after marriage. and so forth. Roman Law.

especially after the mid-third century c. male and female. old and young. Indeed. Photo Credit: Alinari/ Art Resource. This association of the emperor and the paterfamilias was not accidental. The specific obligations of all members of a domus toward the head—obedience.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
11
The Ara Pacis Augustae: The Imperial Family. respect. the Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar of Augustine Peace) demonstrates this idea visually. was associated with a paternalistic role for the emperor. The emperor Augustus leads a religious procession. Indeed. One reason was that social systems derived from
. Rome.. NY. one of the most famous monuments from the age of Augustus. and duty—were exactly the obligations the emperor expected of the people living in the empire. those of the paterfamilias waned. even as the powers of the emperors strengthened.
Patriae—the Father of the Country. the increasingly autocratic power of the emperor. Parents and Children Ironically. Museum of the Ara Pacis. followed by all the members of his family. Ara Pacis—detail of procession of Augustus’s family. Italy. adult and child in a profound statement of both religious devotion and family solidarity.e.

and the first century c.. Augustus was guilty of the same manipulation of his daughter Julia. and ancient Greece had provided the legal foundations for the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia. Roman law clearly placed a tremendous amount of power and control in the hands of the patriarchs of Roman families. traditional Roman practice of marriage with manus disappeared entirely by the end of the first century b. Is there evidence that Roman men abused this power consistently? Actually. For instance. It became common for Roman patresfamilia (the plural form) to emancipate their adult sons at the time they married. marriages were arranged without manus. As a result. Egypt. even when they were married and had children of their own. The old. In addition. Tullia. Instead.c. the typical idea that male children achieved independence once they reached a certain age (around 21 to 30. Even though the patriarch might expect a certain veneration—and patresfamilia in the traditional sense did retain control of the religious rituals in which the family engaged—he had considerably less power over his sons than in earlier times. rather the opposite seems to have been the case. Seleucia (which originally incorporated Syria and all of Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf). and the one most influenced by Greek and Hellenistic cultural norms.12
Family Life in the Middle Ages
the cultures of ancient Greece did not agree with the idea that multiple generations could be held under the authority of a single patriarch. Fathers could also emancipate their daughters—and some did—in order to prevent just this kind of abuse from occurring after the father died and the control of his daughter passed to a new paterfamilias. Pontus. Since the eastern half of the Roman Empire was the wealthiest and most densely populated portion. fathers could compel their daughters to divorce—a situation that probably occurred more frequently in the imperial family than in more so-called typical Roman families—and they could then marry their daughters to men with better political or financial connections. it suggests that both marriage and family relationships in the Roman period were on the whole quite a bit like they were in the Middle Ages: complex
. Control over daughters was a different matter. as mentioned above.e.e. women were able to designate their children as their heirs.. The great orator Cicero did just this with his daughter. and. with the position of the male head of household being assumed by each generation for his own small family. Although evidence is somewhat anecdotal. and the independent kingdoms that came out of the division of Seleucia—Syria. which meant that daughters were considered still to be members of their natal families. fathers retained considerable power over their daughters. depending on the system) entered more forcefully into Roman ideas of family. even if the marriage was dissolved or a wife was widowed. Pergamum. as time went on. This turned the Roman system into a more nuclear organization.e. such as her brother or uncle. and Armenia—all of which had been conquered and absorbed by Rome between the second century b.c.

6 Mother-son relationships have a long history in the Roman world. Monica abandoned her husband (Augustine’s father) to follow her son to Rome and Milan. Deodatus. Perpetua is unmoved by her father’s frantic entreaties. As the daughter of the most famous Roman hero of the Punic Wars. marriage systems were even more fluid than at the beginning of the Roman Empire. some 250 years earlier. especially female saints’ lives. Perpetua’s father is beside himself with grief and panic over Perpetua’s willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of her religion. It suggests that.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
13
and pragmatic. Some of the most interesting evidence about families in the later Roman period comes from the literature of early Christianity. He also fails to identify the mother of his son. but also affectionate. and her sons Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus in the second century b.5 This is an example of a family unit—father. especially with regard to children. Augustine rarely mentions his father by name. but her situation was different from the norm because she was a nursing mother of a newborn who was also in the prison with her. but especially her father. Cornelia. because it seems to be an authentic autobiography of a young woman who was martyred in Carthage (the capital of Roman North Africa) in 203. although they had never formally married. but she does allow him to become guardian of her son and arranges for his care after her death. who had raised 12 children only to see all of them die before her. and that families were constituted in more informal ways than the legal system stipulates. by name. and infant grandchildren—that operated as a social organism without the interaction of the infant’s father or his lineage. adult children. mother-daughter relationships are depicted as very common in early Christian groups—Saint Jerome had a mother-daughter duo as his principle patrons—as are mother-son relationships.c. She seemed tireless when it came to promoting her son and. in fact. with perhaps the most famous being that between Cornelia.). Perpetua’s husband never appears in her account.. such as that between Saint Augustine of Hippo and his mother. the wife of Tiberius Gracchus and the daughter of Scipio Africanus.e. but her natal family figures prominently. According to Augustine’s Confessions (written in the late fourth century c. Cornelia had a certain status (one
. Indeed. The “Life of Saints Perpetua and Felicity” is one of the most unusual pieces of literary evidence we have for early Christianity. and he claims to have loved her devotedly. was intimately involved in her sons’ social reforms and she even got into arguments with them over which course of action might be best. the patron deities of the Empire). Monica.e. among them her mother and her brothers. by the third century. mother. even though he had had a long term living arrangement with her. and he begs her several times to change her mind (he had arranged for her pardon if she would agree to sacrifice to the image of Roma and Bona Fortuna. Perpetua was in prison with a number of other Christians and awaiting execution with them.

Adoption seems to have been an occasional strategy during the Republic. The so-called Antonine emperors succeeded each other through the mechanism of formal adoption and marriage to females in their predecessor’s lineage. the first century c. it is likely that the pragmatic norms were more like the intimate relationships between parents and children that appear in non-legal literature. Although there is very little evidence of this phenomenon occurring with any regularity among the lower classes. historian Tacitus’s relationship with his father-in-law. Tacitus’s biography of Agricola. as a way of providing a son for the nuclear family to rely on. Roman moralists from the beginning of the first century b. one aspect of this situation does appear often in the histories of the imperial dynasties: the adoption of adult males in order to guarantee the seamless transferal of property from one generation to the next. and married him to his biological daughter. Changes in Roman Family Structures Roman family structure. Although it is difficult to quantify this alleged trend. it would be bizarre if Roman society had preserved the legal forms in the real world without interpreting them flexibly. since there are no records available to verify whether or not this was actually occurring. Adoption thus could create a legal family that
.e. In contrast. Julia. Cnaeus Julius Agricola.e. seems to have been more significant in some ways than his relationship with his own father.e. Tiberius. who had been the governor of Britain during the reign of Domitian and had died in 93 c. indeed.7 We can thus see that even while Roman law might have created hardened definitions of marriage and family and somewhat rigid structures in which these definitions played out. This is not unusual. took on some interesting and relatively unusual characteristics beyond the changes in the power of the paterfamilias and the growing trend toward the emancipation of children. This might be seen as the reverse of marriage with manus especially since adoptions often seem to have occurred concurrently with the newly adopted son being married to a biological daughter of the household. For one thing.c. Augustus adopted his stepson. Tiberius adopted his sister’s sons and designated them as his heirs. but also a long history of political alliance and connections between them. especially as the Empire aged. displays not only a sentimental attachment to his illustrious father-in-law. at least in the case of imperial adoption practices. this kind of adoption system was a strategy used frequently by the imperial families.14
Family Life in the Middle Ages
which she seems to have lorded over her husband) but the relationship she enjoyed with her two adult sons went beyond her stature as kin of the great Africanus. commented frequently on an apparent decline in the number of marriages and in the number of legitimate children born. (about five years before Tacitus wrote his biography).

mothers seem to have played
. but this. If this were the only criterion by which to evaluate the status of women in late Roman culture. The ability of women to control property changed. Imperial mothers figure prominently in the histories of imperial Rome. when marriage without manus was more common. however. especially in the later Roman period. This issue speaks to larger one: the status of women in the Roman family. emancipated single women and widows were much freer to be able to invent their own families and to interact with their natal families as more powerful members. Women occupied necessary roles in the family. Moreover. Historians often make connections between status and access to wealth. it seems to have died out in the West once the Germanic kingdoms had superseded the Roman imperial administration. Although occasionally utilized by Byzantine emperors.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
15
was nonetheless not biological in origin. but they were not allowed to write wills without the permission of their husbands. Although seemingly common as a guarantor of imperial succession. women could own land. engage in business. The Status of Women in the Roman Family The use of adoption when a family does not have any male heirs should suggest quite strongly that females were not considered appropriate members of the family to inherit the family property. women had access to very little property and almost no land. the use of adoption does not seem to have been a popular strategy outside the imperial age. wife (or perhaps concubine) of Constantius I and mother of Constantine I. Wives also received a small marriage gift from their husbands. too. to Helena. matron. was only nominally under their control. Although Romans did occasionally refer to the wife of the paterfamilias as the materfamilias. which were not controlled directly by wives. especially with the decline of the political importance of the Senate and the Assembly in the Roman Empire. Augustus’s wife. and even adopt other adults as their heirs. as mother. the significance of these roles actually changed over time. If freed from the patria potestas. write wills. especially if their fathers had emancipated them from paternal authority. if their status changed from wife to widow. Brides had some right to claim ownership of their clothing and the physical goods they brought to their marriages. but these roles were buried in the family structure in ways that render them difficult to unearth. this was a term that did not resonate the power and influence that the patriarch of the family enjoyed. Although they needed a male to act as their representative when conducting public business (this person was referred to as a tutor). Aside from their dowries. and daughter. From Livia. indeed. then we would conclude that women had very little status. Widows (and in some ways divorcées and women who never married) could attain a different status.

He was killed in 415. Often they were simply political pawns their fathers used to connect the imperial family to important and powerful men. Emperor Antoninus Pius’s wife Faustina was deified (made a god) along with him when they died. the last wife of Emperor Claudius and the mother of Nero. Emperor Honorius. in a non-imperial parallel. if unstable. The daughters of members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty were used in this way. did not apparently play a significant political role during the reign of her son. Not all imperial wives and mothers were positive influences on their husbands and children. 379–395) and the sister. the wife of Septimius Severus. and his wife Serena.16
Family Life in the Middle Ages
significant. so they became the model married imperial gods at death. the Germanic general who served as imperial governor of the city. married Marcus Aurelius when Antoninus adopted him as his son and successor. if informal. Her conversion to Christianity long before Constantine’s own conversion. was responsible for promoting competition between her own sons and seems to have had significant influence during their reigns. Faustina the Younger. wife. son attained the imperial throne. She eventually married Alaric’s brother Athaulf. the daughter of Theodosius I (r. the daughter of Antoninus Pius and Faustina. Galla Placidia wielded an incredible amount of power in the late Roman imperial system. who was western emperor. must have had a significant impact on her son’s willingness to embrace the religion. As they had been the model married couple in life. She was sent to Rome by her brother. whom he
. however. however. Monica’s dedication to Christianity had a tremendous influence on her son Augustine’s eventual adoption of that religion. and Galla Placidia was taken prisoner by the Visigoth king Alaric when he invaded Italy and the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410. Her brother Honorius. is depicted by the Roman historian Suetonius as a horrible scheming murderous harridan who would stop at nothing to ensure that her beloved. Julia Domna. Agrippina the Younger. however. Imperial daughters had considerably fewer roles to play than their mothers. Honorius had Stilicho murdered in 408. whose relationship with Constantius was dissolved so that he could marry the daughter of his co-emperor when he was adopted by him. however. Helena. possibly with the collusion of his sister. who succeeded him as king of the Visigoths. and mother of four other emperors. roles within the imperial family. Certainly. to live with Stilicho. and Galla Placidia was ransomed back to the Romans. Nero apparently returned the favor by having her murdered. Perhaps the most significant imperial daughter was Galla Placidia. then married her to Constantius III. and she became an important patron of the church during one of its formative periods. The roles of wife and mother cannot necessarily be considered as co-equivalent: Livia was very powerful as Augustus’s wife but she was far more influential as his widow after his death and as the mother and grandmother of his successors.

on the Adriatic Sea. forcing her to leave Rome for Constantinople. Galla Placidia died before she could see her beloved Italy and Rome invaded by the army of Attila from 451 to 453. had ruled.
. especially in Ravenna.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
17
made co-emperor in the west in 421. She was instrumental in sustaining the western empire. Galla Placidia returned to the west and became co-ruler with her son Valentinian III. Galla Placidia was probably more influential than any late Roman imperial daughter. By this time. When Honorius died in 423. Arcadius. where her other brother. She was also a significant patron of the church. As such. the capital of the eastern Roman Empire. When she died in 450. Constantius died less than a year later. negotiating with the Visigothic generals who governed from Rome. and popular opinion turned against Galla Placidia. from her tomb in Ravenna. Fortunately. Galla Placidia’s life also acts as a prediction of the
Portrait of Galla Placidia. and working to prevent the invasion of Attila the Hun. her career probably illustrates the kinds of cultural and political changes that occurred most dramatically in the fourth century. a magnificent mausoleum and tomb was erected for her in Ravenna. the western imperial court was located in the city of Ravenna.

The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna. in that they were patriarchal and incorporated household members such as servants and slaves into their definitions of family. Civilizations such as Greece and the Hellenistic Mediterranean already had family structures that were quite similar to those of Rome.
experiences of imperial women in the years to come: the wives and daughters of Roman and Byzantine emperors after her tended to be considerably more engaged in political activity and religious patronage than those of the earlier period.
.18
Family Life in the Middle Ages
The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Different Family Structures in the Later Roman Empire People living within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. were bound by Roman Civil Law and that meant that their own family traditions underwent some modifications to conform better to Roman ideals. Italy. and were less conformist in their approaches to reconciling Roman legal categories with their own family traditions. however. structured families quite differently. especially those who attained citizen status (after the year 211 every free person living in the Empire was granted citizen status). Other cultures.

it is unlikely that this was a great hardship to the Jewish community of Roman Judea. Romanization included not only the adoption of Latin as the dominant language (so much so that many Celtic dialects disappeared) but also the adoption of Roman lifestyles: living in towns. Celtic society was based upon the idea of clan: anyone related by blood was considered family and patterns of power. Celts who occupied western Europe from Britain to modern-day Spain and from Gaul (modern-day France and Switzerland) to the Balkans. Nevertheless. Judaic law. and Germanic groups who moved into western Europe. and so on. such as Ireland.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
19
Three such groups are worth illustrating. inheritance. on the other hand. especially in the area of private legal traditions. were deliberately and systematically Romanized after the Roman occupation of Iberia by Scipio Africanus and Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. those areas most significantly affected by Roman occupation lost their traditional family structures. provincial senates. slaves. As a result. governing through magistrates. but their aristocratic families were also Romanized. The Britons were less acculturated after the Emperor Claudius’s conquest of Britain than their continental cousins. the control of daughters’ marriages by the father. Celtic family and social structures persisted. in outlying parts of the Empire. and married children). and were not bothered by the Roman authorities. and abiding by Roman law. Instead of the nuclear family systems found in the Mediterranean (even when those included servants. Jews. his power over his children. marriage. as outlined in the Hebrew Holy Scriptures. a very small group in the Roman Empire. The only aspect of Judaic family traditions disallowed by the Romans was the possibility of polygamy—the marrying of more than one woman at a time. were granted a semiautonomous status by Rome.
. the only ancient examples coming from biblical legends such as the marriage of Jacob to sisters Leah and Rachel and Solomon and his thousand wives. and association were conceived horizontally rather than vertically. including all possible extended family members and even illegitimate children. Egypt. In other words. and community. such as Britain. and assemblies. participating in Roman entertainments. since they ultimately influenced notions of the family in medieval culture quite significantly: Jews living in the Roman Empire. Celtic families were very broadly conceived. is very strict in its definitions of family. and these categories were allowed to coexist with Roman legal structures in Roman Judea. and Mesopotamia had virtually identical structures. eventually supplanting the Celts throughout the areas west of the Danube. and in areas not conquered by Rome. Other Semitic cultures living in Roman Syria. Since this was a highly unusual phenomenon in Judaic culture. Other aspects of Judaic family structure were compatible with Roman traditions: the primacy of the male head of the household. brothers and first cousins of a particular man were typically considered important social and political associates. inheritance. Celts.

20
Family Life in the Middle Ages
sometimes even more than his sons and daughters. union between a man and a woman) being considered legitimate and the children of those unions being incorporated into the family structure.8
. Indeed. The blending was unequal: in the south. They were expanded tribal entities headed by a royal lineage that had attained that title through warfare. The law codes reflect the customs of pre-Christian Germanic culture. Also based on the idea of the tribe or the clan. Germanic societies were closer to traditional Celtic societies than they were to the Roman model. Nevertheless. For example. with different kinds of relationships ranging from formal marriage to temporary concubinage (a system of informal. are not nearly as detailed as those of the Roman Empire. in the Celtic cultures that persisted into the Middle Ages. or whether they were designed to imitate the law-writing tendencies of the Roman provincial administrations they had conquered. conquest. Germanic families were also inclusive. Medieval family structures in western Europe came about as a result of the blending of Roman and Germanic family traditions. and personal leadership. and they served a somewhat different purpose. Roman traditions took precedence and in the North. Nevertheless. polygamous. modified and to some extent transformed. they remained essentially unchanged until the Middle Ages. Even though the conversion of many Britons and Irish to Christianity did affect these structures. as shown through the written law codes of both traditions. Moreover. The Germanic kingdoms were not highly structured administrations with magistrates. property was transmitted. law courts. all the men and boys in the family—and none of the women and girls—were potential heirs of family property. Germanic families emphasized the relationship between the patriarch-father and his children as the dominant structure whereby families were defined. in order to accommodate the Christian religious leaders who did the actual compiling of the laws. in Germanic society. but often permanent. Germanic traditions predominated. Marriage was also much more informal in Celtic society. which were written down between the sixth and the ninth centuries by kings of many different Germanic kingdoms in western Europe. it is not clear whether these law codes were intended to be entirely enforceable. and associations were maintained. it is impossible to talk about the western European medieval family without looking at the nature of both the late Roman Empire and the Germanic kingdoms that began to replace Roman rule beginning in the sixth century. and complex document-based systems of taxation and justice. sons and daughters tended to inherit parental property and cousins or other relations were usually not considered direct heirs unless there were no children available to inherit. and more informally organized. Legal Definitions of Family in Early Germanic Culture Germanic law codes.

widowhood. relating specifically to all the different Germanic kingdoms that existed after the sixth-century conquests. Former Roman citizens living in the newly formed Germanic kingdoms remained subject to Roman law. It would take hundreds of years for the two systems to be blended into a customary or common law that related to the entire population of a given region. but also what we would think of as criminal law. however. suggest that it is hard to make such categorical conclusions based on very little evidence beyond law codes and the occasional political history. As a result. legitimacy. where dowries—the goods and property wives brought to the marriage—were considered the most important economic transaction. In addition. definitions of family in Germanic culture were quite different from those in Roman culture. The fluid structure of Germanic families influenced not only the development of inheritance laws. Ironically. As in Roman law. divorce. As mentioned earlier. The term for a woman’s legal personality was mund and so her mund passed from one family to another at the time of marriage. or sons. unlike Rome. husbands. Most recent historical arguments. usually fathers. Although there were a dozen or more individual codes. uncles. such as Gregory of Tours’s History of the Franks. and cousins into even more extended kin.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
21
Another issue that makes the Germanic codes different from Roman civil law is that they were ethnically specific: Bavarian or Swabian or Kentish or Visigothic law related only to Bavarians or Swabians or Kentishmen and women or Visigoths. but also as kinship groups extending beyond the level of grandparents. and inheritance. all contain a number of similar features. guardianship. with the details being only slightly different. this did not mean that the new bride’s kinship associations were also transferred: she was always considered part of her natal family. they were minimally important in Germanic marriage systems and the brideprice was emphasized. This has led some historians to claim that women were more highly valued in early Germanic culture than they were in Roman culture. Like Roman law. On the other hand. however. and differences highlighted only when they are particularly relevant. aunts. girls and women were under perpetual guardianship of some male. it is true that Germanic women had a greater economic stake in her family-by-marriage. Unlike marriage with manus. Germanic law can be discussed in general terms. Family was defined both as the nuclear group of parents and children. Historians generally consider marriage in Germanic society to have been an economic arrangement: scholars talk about bride purchase and brideprice when referring to the property potential husbands had to give the bride and her natal family in order for a legal marriage to take place.
. marriages were more fluid so children considered illegitimate by Roman standards were included in the closest kinship groups. Germanic law was very concerned with defining family relationships and with issues such as marriage.

political leadership in early Germanic culture was not passed from father to son. their Carolingian successors were in the Middle Ages more frequently known as the Peppinids. In this larger family unit. As a result. and did not share in the Roman obsession for complex administrative systems and hierarchies. and economic fortunes. social. not urban. Women in the family unit were also political actors in this context. especially as the mothers of sons who might have a claim on the inheritance. Marriage was not necessarily considered a permanent state in early Germanic culture.22
Family Life in the Middle Ages
and this might reflect a different kind of division of labor within that culture. Pepin of Heristal. Partible inheritance had certain advantages. Clans were defined as larger kinship groups made up of individuals who shared a common ancestor: the Merovingian kings of Frankish Gaul traced their ancestry back to a mythical ancestor. Indeed. a phenomenon that persisted in early medieval western Europe in areas of Germanic dominance even after the Germanic kingdoms converted to Christianity. a situation in which a man formed a legal and formal association with a woman of lower social status (even a slave) and in which the children of the union were considered to be legitimate. The nuclear family (even one expanded by multiple marriages and concubines) was not the only family system in Germanic culture. all members of a particular generation were considered to have an equal share in the family’s political. there are some indications that Germanic culture might originally have been matrilineal—that families traced their origins through the female lines—and that it became more patrilineal after the conversion of Christianity. Merovech. formal marriage was not the only option: men and women could engage in more informal arrangements. This makes sense. In addition. Men were also allowed to have wives and concubines at the same time. although often in unequal shares. but more typically was shared among brothers. This meant that female and male status was not deliberately organized into separate spheres as it was in Roman administration. in that it usually
. who then fought to gain political advantage in order to pass their power to the next generation. The clan was even more important in the political environment than the nuclear family. Inheritance was partible: all the children of a given father and/or mother received portions of the family property. wives also had rights within the system and could even initiate divorce proceedings for certain misbehaviors on the part of their husbands. Although the law codes indicate that husbands could divorce their wives for virtually any reason. such as concubinage. since Germanic culture was agrarian. it is understandable that laws governing inheritance in families did not privilege one particular member over the rest. Since the clan was conceived as the fundamental family unit in early Germanic culture. a name that refers to their most illustrious ancestor.

As the centuries progressed. By the end of the Roman Empire in the west in the fifth century. Roman definitions of family became influenced by their contact with other cultures. Conclusion The family structures of the Roman Empire had a significant influence on those of the medieval world. the Pope. This was the culture that the Germanic kingdoms of the medieval west inherited. The traditional Roman religion of the gods of the hearth (the lares and penates) was supplanted. and the family’s power was not destroyed with the death of a single family member.The Late Roman Family and Transition to the Middle Ages
23
required all the siblings to work together to maintain the family’s economic and biological viability. issues that will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 2. and competition over increasingly small portions of the clan’s patrimony. Christian leaders began to be interested in regulating marriage fairly early in the history of the religion. such as the Germanic tribes. the cultural differences between east and west had become obvious. by the time of the fourth century. was soon incorporated into imperial administration and it modeled its own public structure on it as well. preferring to maintain the unity of the more populous and wealthier east. especially Greeks in the eastern Mediterranean. Indeed. especially among the wealthier and more powerful clans. Religion also played a part in the transformation from the Roman to the medieval family. Paul in the first century c. early Germanic society (at least according to historians such as Gregory of Tours) was rife with cases of fratricide. but they were not able to do so from a position of authority until well into the Middle Ages. and so medieval families combined these elements in their systems as well..e. and Germanic cultures.
. who tended to become embroiled in internal conflicts. feuds. however. Semitic. Greek. Thus. Celtic. intermingled in varying degrees depending upon the geographical region. Christianity. their more flexible and informal systems sometimes came into conflict with Roman regulations. plotting. by Christianity. The Roman Empire’s family systems were based upon very clearly defined legal structures that identified virtually every aspect of family life. Medieval culture was a combination of Roman. and enmity among both male and female members of clans. but they were also derived from distinctly un-Roman elements as well. It had serious disadvantages as well. When other groups invaded the empire. Political leaders effectively abandoned the west to its Germanic conquerors. which was also a profoundly family-based religion. as evidenced by the statements of St. to the position of children. the city of Rome became the preserver of Roman imperial culture as interpreted by its bishop. from the power of the paterfamilias to the status of wives.

See Keith R. The Roman Family in Late Antiquity: The endurance of Tradition and the Rise of Christianity (Unpublished Ph. http://www. 98 c. Tacitus. 1995).html.upenn.fordham. html. ed. See. http://www. 7. UCLA. “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity. The Internet Medieval History Sourcebook has an extensive section of early Germanic law codes: http://fordham. especially.D.html. 4. dissertation.e. 324–326. http://www.24
Family Life in the Middle Ages
Notes
1. 2.edu/halsall/source/ perpetua.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/tacitus-agricola. 5. 3. also.” in The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook. a fuller discussion in chapter 2.” in The Internet Medieval History Sourcebook. “Life of Cnaeus Julius Agricola. As mentioned by Geoffrey Stephen Nathan.html. 1992). 8. See James O’Donnell. 6.edu/halsall/sbook-law.edu/jod/ augustine.. History of Rome at The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook.sas. Titus Livy. There are numerous translations of the works of Augustine of Hippo. 1991). ed. ed. Paul Halsall. The Roman Family (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.html. See.fordham. “Augustine of Hippo. 171.edu/halsall/ancient/livy-rape. Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History (New York: Oxford University Press. Suzanne Dixon.” http://ccat. c. What follows is a somewhat simplified version. Bradley. Paul Halsall.
.

Belgium. Angles. either through migration similar to that which brought them to the Roman Empire or through so-called Viking activity: Ireland. Visigoths ruled all of Spain until the Muslim invasions reduced their territory to the northernmost portion of the peninsula. Scandinavia. and Ukraine. both under Byzantine control until the Norman invasions of the eleventh century. The Netherlands. was slowly replaced by encroaching Germanic groups who established independent kingdoms in every part of the formerly Roman territory. too. from roughly 500 to 1500. was a vibrant and diverse culture dominated by two particular legacies: the Roman and the Germanic. First Ostrogoths and then Lombards ruled almost all of Italy. Germany. the Danube region. Lithuania. and portions of Western Germany) was occupied by Franks in the north and Burgundians in the south. Austria. or minimally part of the old empire. ruled as a separate entity from the eastern Roman Empire from the middle of the fourth century to the end of the fifth century. Portions of Europe not conquered by Rome. Vandals occupied North Africa until the late sixth century. Luxembourg. were also colonized by Germanic groups.2
The Family in the Medieval West
Medieval western Europe. with the exception of the region around Rome retained by the local aristocracy and the papacy and the southwest quadrant and Sicily. and Jutes occupied most of Roman Britain. England. Poland. Saxons. but eventually the Burgundians. came under Frankish rule. and portions of Eastern Europe that now comprise Latvia. Switzerland. The western Roman Empire. Gaul (modern-day France. although the process took centuries to
. Most of these regions eventually converted to Roman Christianity.

roles family members played.26
Family Life in the Middle Ages
be completed. political. most of the regions occupied by Germanic groups would have had only minimal contact with and influence from Roman culture. and the roles that family members played. which spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe beginning in 1347. Two general events in western Europe. central or High. and
. the status of women and children. with political historians identifying specific political events (such as the invention of the so-called Holy Roman Empire with the crowning of Charlemagne in 800) and social historians identifying non-political phenomena (such as climate change and population migration) as being dividing moments between eras. a worldwide pandemic that combined three different forms of the plague bacillus in one deadly event. with a large number of Germanic kingdoms. Not all of these survived. Therefore. but within 150 years. this 550-year period will be emphasized in both this and later chapters. however. These inevitably led to changes in family structure. Between 700 and 1347 western Europe experienced radical changes in population. Intellectual and cultural historians look at completely different events (such as the development of a new way of writing called Carolingian minuscule in the late eighth century or the invention of the printing press around 1450) as significant moments of transformation. which began around 700 and continued nearly to the millennium. if more briefly. that the reality of medieval family life in western Europe was much more complex and varied than the descriptions offered here: they should serve as a starting point for further exploration. and late Middle Ages. Indeed. The Early Middle Ages: Period of Germanic Migration and Dominance As mentioned in the previous chapter and above. the conversion of Germanic groups to Christianity was the most important component in their Romanization: without Christianity. Nevertheless. It is important to bear in mind. It is difficult to provide a general overview of family over such a long period of time and over such a wide geographical area. and the Black Death. however. it is possible to discuss the medieval family in general terms in the early. central. the Roman Empire in the west was replaced. Western Europe had experienced a profound social. Historians usually divide the medieval period into several units: the early. although the earlier and later periods will be covered as well. These units are largely artificial distinctions and are much debated. and late medieval eras based on certain specific issues that can be highlighted: traditional and legal definitions of family. are largely accepted as watershed moments in the development of medieval society: the Viking invasions. economic systems. political and legal structures. and culture. and how generations within families are defined. beginning around the year 450.

The Family in the Medieval West
27
cultural transformation. Written literature. was usually written in Latin (except in England. perhaps because their importance in the family unit seemed unusual to the Roman clerics who were writing down the laws under orders from the newly created kings. after 550. the two populations—Roman and Germanic—also became more or less thoroughly blended by the end of the sixth century. conquest. In those areas with less Roman influence. legal. Germanic family structure combined both extended family and nuclear family elements. As each of the Germanic kings converted to Christianity. and political systems of the region quite significantly. By 600. replaced by a no less patriarchal but structurally more fluid Germanic system. where there was a strong literary tradition in Anglo-Saxon. In areas where the Germanic population was very small in comparison to the native people over whom they ruled. Germanic law (written. Latin remained the common language (hence the origins of Italian). Although initially deliberately kept separated. such as French and Spanish. on the Continent this often combined with the local Latin to form hybrid languages. In Britain. and especially before the establishment
. and Visigoths ruled Spain. however. The center of the early medieval family was the husband/wife or father/mother team. seven individual Germanic Anglo-Saxon kingdoms competed for dominance in about twothirds of the island. in Latin except in England) takes pains to define women’s roles in the family far more explicitly than those of men. and one of the most obvious examples of these changes can be found in the early medieval family. In most cases. three Germanic kingdoms dominated continental western Europe: the Frankish Merovingian dynasty ruled Gaul and much of Germany between the Rhine and the Oder Rivers (a region called Frankia). Indeed. with the extreme west (Wales) and north (Scotland) being retained by native Celtic kings. The Roman system of the paterfamilias quickly disappeared. The invasion. also known as Old English) and was controlled by church professionals. as opposed to oral literature. and settlement of these Germanic groups in western Europe did alter the social. Lombard kings ruled both northern and southcentral Italy (the Lombard kingdoms and the principalities of Benevento and Salerno). German dialects survived more completely: Anglo-Saxon England and Germany being the most significant examples. Roman ideas filtered into their culture: although all these people spoke Germanic dialects.1 Germanic Law and the Early Medieval Family As mentioned in chapter 1. such as in Italy. The social structure of these kingdoms combined traditional Germanic systems with the Roman structures the new rulers found in place. the law codes of the early medieval Germanic kingdoms were very different from both Roman civil and modern legal texts.

inheritance. called a morning gift (in Old English and Old German this was called a morgengab) directly to the bride the day after the wedding. Many law codes. While married life is scarcely mentioned in Germanic law codes. which bar females from inheriting at all with the exception of a small dowry of moveable property (that is. however. What does not appear in the codes. The Germanic groups had systems for assessing criminal activity and dispensing justice before these law codes were written down. and social status. which had an effect on their position in the family. it was not entirely clear how the laws that were written down were supposed to be enforced. such as keeping a woman as a concubine. and widowhood. Family issues occupy a relatively small part of these law codes.28
Family Life in the Middle Ages
of Charlemagne as king of the Franks in 768. They appear in the codes as a series of monetary payments that the guilty must pay to the victim or the victim’s family based on a valuation called a wergeld—literally “man value”—in which human life was assessed a particular value based on sex. Marriage in Germanic law was minimally regulated. property other than land). Early medieval Christians were generally barred from practicing polygamy—the marriage of several women to one man or vice versa—but it is clear from non-legal sources that medieval Germanic kings were not strictly monogamous. which took longer to develop. is an administrative structure designed to control lawlessness and oversee dispute resolution. and usually focus on issues of marriage. and more informal relationships. Among all Germanic legal systems. and the law codes of the Celtic kingdoms of Wales and Ireland. As a result. the standard is that all male children inherit equal portions of the family’s estate. much to the dismay of the religious leaders in Gaul. and that female children inherit as well. either. Connected to these issues is that of the legal status of women. Unlike in Roman law. for instance. were also considered acceptable under law. the identification of people who can rightfully inherit property plays an important role in all the codes. including those of the
. although usually not as much as their brothers. many historians conclude that the written codes identify traditional ideals and relationships rather than create a useable legal system that offers a structure for actual dispute resolution. Marriages were relatively easy to dissolve under Germanic law. The only exceptions to this are the laws of the Salian Franks. many of whom overlapped in time. age. Charlemagne. Germanic marriage law stipulated that prospective husbands had to pay a bride price to the bride and her family and a second gift. which bar females from inheriting land. had a succession of wives and concubines throughout his life. The main issue in the law codes had to do with the financial arrangements connected to marriage. where the dowry brought by the wife to the husband was the most important financial arrangement under law. Most law codes do not identify anything the bride might bring to the marriage except for her clothing and some household goods.

usually her son. or they introduced somewhat artificial formulas for defining interpersonal relationships that could not be enforced. which spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to wipe out family members (including brothers) in order to amass a greater share of the family’s estates. she still had a certain level of control over her financial wealth. however. Women in Germanic culture were. Germanic law codes either presented elements of the traditional culture that were well known norms. they were unable to gain legal autonomy at any time in their lives. the holder of the widow’s mund must have acted for her. Indeed. especially for women. That is. but she was making the decisions. like those in Roman culture. This extreme level of division that is possible in the distribution of a family’s property must have been very stressful for families. although these were confined to central Italy. limited in their independence. figuratively. he bride’s husband controlled her mund. The roles and status of wives and widows in early medieval Germanic law is an important component for many scholars who study the history of women in the medieval world. Thus. Even though a Germanic woman was unable in most cases to control her own mund. a girl’s mund was held by her father or closest male relative.” The term mund refers specifically to a woman’s legal status as an autonomous person able to conduct business. or by the king. which meant that in any public transactions. “protection. The Germanic codes identify personhood. When looking at the early medieval family. vestiges of Roman culture did remain. It also at times referred to the king’s responsibility to provide protection for all his subjects. the potential for conflict was tremendous: it became a prominent feature of historical sources describing early medieval royal families. especially as a widow. Women and girls in Germanic culture never gained control of their own individual mund. buy and sell land. by the term mund (Latinized in the law codes as mundium). include male cousins and paternal uncles as potential heirs. and operate independent of male control. widows sometimes could act as guardians of their children. Before marriage. The Preservation of Roman Culture and the Christianization of the Germanic Kingdoms After the Germanic invasions. the law codes tend to concentrate on social and cultural issues familiar to all. The law codes of the Germanic kingdoms define female status by the concept of mund.The Family in the Medieval West
29
Irish and the Welsh. the widow’s mund was controlled either by her male next-of-kin. If widowed. especially the city of Rome
. which means literally “hand” or. Germanic widows gained access to their morning gift and a portion of their husbands’ estates—usually a quarter to a third. Once married. In addition. but it is not at all clear how this affected women’s actual lives. Often this dower depended on the widow agreeing not to remarry.

but until that time. In the history of early Anglo-Saxon England written by the Venerable Bede. such as the dowry the bride’s family supplied. for example. was filtered through a Christian lens. however. known as “Papa”—that is. which in turn led to Italy. This is discussed in greater detail in chapter 9. With respect to the family. and portions of North Africa and southern Spain that were left relatively untouched by the Vandal and Visigothic conquests. There. the kings of the Germanic groups began to convert to Christianity. The Division of Labor and the Status of Men and Women in Early Medieval Families Adult males in early medieval families were expected to spend a great deal of their time away from the family unit. participating in warfare and raiding. Italian city-states emphasized Roman legal conventions. that the papacy considered heretical. or in court administration and attendance. In the Life of the Emperor Charlemagne written by his court historian Einhard. sometimes with a Germanic overlay. 590–604). The remembrance of Rome’s glories led to the development of unique political and social institutions in Italy: the city-state and the commune. and Lombards. called Arian Christianity. Early medieval sources depict adult men as very active. The Roman culture that spread. over Germanic conventions.30
Family Life in the Middle Ages
and its surrounding province. having significantly different legal systems than those of northern Europe. for instance. Christianity proved to be the mechanism by which Roman ideas were conveyed to the Germanic kingdoms. Because of missionary activity and papal pressure. especially those areas less influenced by Lombard laws and culture. in farming and herding.2 One reason why the Merovingian Franks became dominant in Europe was because they converted to Roman Christianity and won the support of the papacy against the Arian Christian Visigoths. It also lead to a preservation of Roman legal ideals. however. Pope—from the reign of Gregory I (r. kings such as Ethelbert of Kent and Oswald of Northumbria debated the merits of Christianity or the proper date of Easter in a court containing nothing but men. As the last official representative of Roman culture. the inhabitants retained significant cultural connections to Rome. the emperor’s
. although most Germanic groups adhered to a form. This would have an effect on the transmission of Roman culture and the Latin language in the medieval period. the bishop of Rome. The connection between Roman culture and Christianity was less fixed in Italy. Burgundians. Roman traditions persisted. such as the bride price and morning gift. These last two areas would ultimately be caught up in the seventhand eighth-century waves of the Islamic conquest and become the Islamic states of the Almohads and al-Andalus in the eighth century. and often surrounded by other men—the warband in the case of the king or chieftain—not by women. became the most powerful religious figure in the west.

and emperor are emphasized. Wives were considered the keepers of the keys. Wealhtheow. and accounts. but also much of the agriculture as well. This obscures in many ways the private roles of men as husbands and fathers. some historians have speculated that more lay women were literate (i. In addition. king of the Danes. they also emphasize the private activity of females. and their hospitality reflected on the status of the family. Although men were in charge of educating the boys in the family in arms. Hrothgar’s wife. Perhaps the best illustration of these particular obligations of the wife in early medieval Germanic culture can be found in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem. Alfred’s children are scarcely mentioned and his wife’s name does not even appear.e. Adult women.3 This is typical of depictions of royal women in Germanic literature before the millennium. warrior. cleaning. when considering the elite levels of early medieval society. as well as valuable advice. Indeed. all of which is depicted as occurring in public and in the great hall. If early medieval sources emphasize the public activity of males. whose familial and social roles were identical (or nearly so) to their political roles. Early medieval elite women were also in charge of education and religion in the family. they had the right to deny people entrance to their houses. women were in charge of entertaining guests: they welcomed travelers to their tables. Thus. Women often seem to have acted as the driving force behind a family’s conversion to Christianity.. In the Life of King Alfred written by the historian Asser. welcomes him in a formal show of hospitality: she presents him with a cup of mead and thanks him for coming to their aid. manufacturing. trades. including book-learning. she provides Beowulf with both gifts and praise. women apparently oversaw all other forms of education. especially wives. The sources for early medieval history therefore emphasize the public and active roles of men. suggesting an important political and social role for queens and princesses. child care. and aristocratic and royal women
. early medieval Germanic wives had significant rights and privileges as members of the family and some are depicted as powerful entities in the family’s political fortunes as well. and that made them the people in charge within the house itself. Mothers are sometimes mentioned as being the ones who hired tutors for their children and they were very important in encouraging the religious education of their families. and agriculture. ran the household: they oversaw not only the cooking. although subordinate under law to their husbands. the political as well as social center of the kingdom. Wealhtheow is clearly responsible for the manner in which both residents of and guests to Hrothgar’s hall are treated. they could read Latin) than lay men in the early Middle Ages. Indeed. Beowulf.The Family in the Medieval West
31
many wives are relegated to the background and his public roles as king. The royal court was more or less the household of the royal family. it can be difficult to separate the family unit from the political unit. a distinction that persists throughout the medieval period. When Beowulf arrives at the court of Hrothgar. In addition.

In the case of Bede. Thus. the only literary examples of the activities of men and women in early medieval families come from the aristocracy.to early eighth-century text The Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede. Clothild. is depicted in her official biography as both an exemplary patron of the church and as a peacemaker between her three sons. A queen-turned-saint. experienced a miraculous conversion.32
Family Life in the Middle Ages
formed powerful alliances with leaders of the church in their regions. As is typical of the entire medieval period. the first Merovingian king. was a Christian Merovingian princess. who became the wife of King Clovis II in the seventh century. accuses Queens Brunhild and Fredegund of perpetuating a feud between Clovis’s sons. nun—than were men. In the case of Gregory. occurred because of the intervention of Pope Gregory I—and considerable prodding by his wife. but also because both historians seem to suggest that the intimacy married couples experience could have led to elite wives having had a certain amount of influence over their royal husbands. and early medieval sources seem to emphasize that both men and women could have significant effects on the success of the family. or could be placed in positions where their lack of status had to be overcome in order for them to make a positive contribution to the family. whose wife Bertha. and the late seventh. The depictions of these monarchs are important not only because of their transformations as Christians. Women in feuding families could act as peacemakers or as provokers. he emphasizes that Clovis. monk. These issues are discussed in more detail in chapter 9.4 Women could also influence their husbands negatively. One important element of Germanic life was the feud: the seemingly perpetual warfare between competitors in the society. Both historians focus on the conversion of kings to Christianity. but only after considerably prodding by his wife. for example. who were fighting over the boundaries between the territories they had inherited after his death. husbands and wives could operate as partners for good or ill in early medieval society. Gregory of Tours. the conversion of Ethelbert of Kent. Two significant sources from the period are the late sixthcentury text The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. Women also seem to have been more interested in guiding their children into religious professions—priest. which relates the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the impact of Christianity on them from the sixth to the end of the seventh centuries. who inherited different portions of the Frankish kingdom. the Englishwoman Balthild.5 Family Membership in Early Medieval Germanic Culture The people who comprised the early medieval family were similar to those in earlier more purely Germanic systems: people well beyond the nuclear family unit could be considered fully fledged family members. which relates the triumph of the Merovingian Dynasty in the first few generations of their dominance in Gaul.
.

but many were not related to their lord at all. Although there are few examples of such warbands outside of fiction (such as epic poetry). and children. Moreover. Nevertheless. they were considered part of the family unit. and even half-siblings and the illegitimate sons of a family’s head were part of the larger family unit. brothers. brothers. since they could usually inherit property as well. Another issue. and the wars between the grandsons of Charlemagne over their divided empire. in that the lord’s wife welcomed them into her household. These living arrangements were probably more likely to encourage cooperation in families rather than conflict. members of the warband acted not only as the private guard of the king or lord. since such families had more varied duties and obligations to perform. Nevertheless. uncles. it seems that most living environments included only the more contained nuclear family of husband. especially with respect to noble families and the royal household. Certainly some members of the warband were the lord’s own sons. took care of them. The law of fully partible inheritance might indeed have encouraged similar behavior on a smaller scale among less exalted families. there are indications that royal households of the Germanic kingdoms and at least some of the wealthier and more powerful nobility maintained such groups of unmarried men. but also as his administrators. chieftain. or king. male cousins. Indeed. Queens also had warbands. Thus. sons. women and girls were not exempt from this system. since early medieval inheritance practices emphasized the ability of all people in the family unit to be potential heirs. and in a sense treated them like members of the family. as Gregory of Tours demonstrates when he discusses the ways in which Queen Fredegund controlled her male retainers. the hero of the tenth-century epic The Song of Roland. was in a position of military authority as leader of the rear guard in part because he was a member of Emperor Charlemagne’s extended family. Children and Childhood in the Early Middle Ages The definition of children in early medieval families is both complex and not always explicitly stated. The tales of murder and mayhem in the History of the Franks of Gregory of Tours that were perpetrated by royal brothers and cousins as they jockeyed for position in the increasingly divided Merovingian kingdom of Gaul. and cousins. a situation that could lead to considerable upheaval when family members competed for scarce resources. It is fairly clear that the period of childhood
. In large families and among the noble class more communal arrangements might have been typical. are both examples from the most elite social level. the family was very broadly conceived. so it is likely that the men in the group answered to both the male and the female heads of the household. is the apparent prevalence of adult unattached males in the household: the so-called warband of the lord. Count Roland. although kin who shared family property probably lived near each other. wife.The Family in the Medieval West
33
Indeed.

and the localized and decentralized political and economic systems that appeared at the millennium. Another reason is that other parts of Europe. but also cousins. One reason is that.34
Family Life in the Middle Ages
was much shorter then than it is now: children were expected to behave like adults as early as age 14. to whom the right of guardianship belongs. These sources do not discuss family issues at all. Children in a given family could include not only the legitimate progeny of one set of parents. if they are orphaned. and so these will be discussed in the context of medieval culture in general in chapter 8. Therefore. especially among the upper class. The Family in the Central Middle Ages: Diversity and Change As hard as it is to describe the family in the early Middle Ages. that were not part of the European cultural region before 1000. leading to even more variety in family structures. although there are virtually no sources available to describe the experiences of peasants in the early Middle Ages aside from some legal sources relating to peasants working on imperial land in the Carolingian era. concubines. regional variations on family structures abounded. In addition. it is likely that children’s experiences during the medieval period did not change significantly over time. Childhood for peasants was probably even shorter than it was for elites. and children that the male of the household had had with previous wives. even though the legal age of adulthood was usually between 18 and 21 for both boys and girls under Germanic law. it is even harder to present a single picture of family life in the central Middle Ages. families could include a large number of children who were not necessarily closely related. wives could be expected to raise the children of their husband’s other sexual unions. the Viking invasions and disruptions that followed soon after. such as Scandinavia and areas to the east of the Oder. Once a child reached the age where his or her schooling would begin. there are few sources available that describe children’s experiences specifically. Nevertheless. or mistresses. but the changes that exist on paper were
. As can be imagined. It is not clear whether children were fostered in households other than those into which they were born (as occurred later in the medieval period). not all of them full siblings. private tutors or parents acted as teachers. with the development of the Holy Roman Empire in 800. this could lead to considerable family tension and competition. were incorporated into the existing territories. In addition. but there is literary evidence that suggests that male children were separated for a time from their families. Unlike the sources for the later period of the central or High Middle Ages. changes in both secular and church law in many areas of Europe altered the relationships of family members to each other. What is more. stepsiblings. Legal texts mention them only in the context of their ability to inherit from their parents or. a child could be raised in a household with many children.

which appear in greater numbers after 1000 than before. such as concubinage arrangements. since Scandinavia retained much of traditional Germanic family structure well into the fourteenth century. which made the ritualized process of betrothal and marriage much more important. the closeness of the family unit. the medieval definition of an orphan was a child whose father had died—the continued survival of the mother had no bearing on the legal definition. in order to maximize the number of potential witnesses. Public celebrations of marriage. became not only more common but also more necessary for the establishment of legitimate marriages. Medieval Law and the Medieval Family in the Central and Later Middle Ages Perhaps most important to this general introduction is the fact that the legal definitions of family became far more complex in this period than they were before this time. manors. according to legal definitions of the family. Lastly. There was a greater division between rich and poor and this played out not only in the physical environment (castles. this is certainly not a hard-and-fast rule. with fewer instances of broadly extended family units. What can be said with some certainty about families in the central Middle Ages is that they tended to be more nuclear in organization than during the earlier period. The more informal and ad hoc relationships that were acceptable under Germanic custom.The Family in the Medieval West
35
not seen instantly on the ground: indeed. it took centuries for systems such as primogeniture (inheritance by the eldest son) to take hold. historians have much more information on medieval families after 800 than they do for the earlier period. Nevertheless. and mud huts and hovels for the poor) but also in the composition of the household. and progeny. To make matters more confusing. families are conceived as husband. and there were always deviations from the legal ideal. usually in front of the parish church rather than inside it. The western church emphasized the permanence of marriage arrangements. That said. Indeed. and mansions for the wealthy. and the roles of family members. Peasant and urban working families were probably less formally separated by generations than were the wealthier aristocrats and merchants. The lifestyles of the different social classes differed more dramatically in this period of population growth and material prosperity. and more information means more complexity in the analysis of structures and systems such as families. wife. were no longer considered legally binding in most of Western Europe and the children of those unions were not considered legitimate and could not inherit property from their fathers. with the wife being both a part of the family and an outsider. All of these will be discussed in greater detail in the topical chapters of section 2. the secular legal systems and the canon law of the Church of Rome
.

and of men marrying their step-daughters. and there are a few examples of royal sons marrying their step-mothers after their fathers died. Common law dower. Although the husband was expected to provide his new bride with a small marriage donation or marriage gift. such as England. the financial obligation was in the other direction: brides brought a dowry with them to the marriage. Secular legal systems defined marriage as an alliance between two families. and the conflicts that arose could be burdensome to families—or convenient. companionship. but. and southern France. if partners whose marriage had been conducted in opposition to canon law wanted to dissolve that marriage. In areas where Roman law persisted. the cost of dowries continued to climb until catastrophic events such as the Black Death of 1347 to 1350 put a brake on them. As a result. secular marriage in the central Middle Ages was a pragmatic institution that focused more on social and family issues than on love. such as Italy. Even though the bride’s family was also expected to make a financial gift to the marriage. Germany. on the other hand. Spain. Both church and lay authorities tried to put limits on the amount of the dowry demanded by potential husbands. and usually required evidence that the marriage had been consummated. she did get to keep the property she brought to the marriage and often a portion of the husband’s contribution. such as existed in medieval England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Although the wife usually lost access to her children if her marriage was dissolved. dowry rules. or religious motivations. Secular marriages were also often endogamous: they formed connections within families and communities rather than between unrelated people or strangers. This cost could be exorbitant for families with many daughters. was defined as a standard percentage of the husband’s landed and moveable property. despite their best efforts.
. involved some kind of financial transaction. the financial element involved the groom granting his new bride a portion of his property: this is called the dower or the morning gift (and it persists in the modern marriage ceremony when the groom promises to “endow” his bride with “all [his] worldly goods”). especially when the couple failed to produce male children. secular forms of marriage were not difficult to dissolve. even if the marriage had been consummated. In areas where Germanic law was more influential than Roman law. not a relationship limited to the bride and groom.36
Family Life in the Middle Ages
frequently differed in their laws of marriage. were much more fluid. it was usually considerably less than that of the dower and it was not required for a legal marriage to be made. and Scandinavia. It was not uncommon for close cousins to marry. especially in Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As in the early Middle Ages. it was not necessary in order for a legal marriage to occur and was usually a fraction of the bride’s dowry. Legal marriage under these systems was arranged by the families in question. The result was a huge inflation in dowries.

The church’s marriage laws were also useful for controlling the lay population. Eucharist. Church law considered any children born into illegally constructed marriages to be illegitimate forever. ordination. Where secular marriage was designed to be flexible. canon lawyers also added many other requirements for creating an approved Christian union. versatile. because even though consent was the most important element to a legal Christian marriage. Christian marriage was permanent: marriage was supposed to be the layperson’s equivalent of a priest taking clerical orders and was included in church doctrine as one of the seven sacraments (baptism. In many regions of western Europe. What is more. not on the arrangements of the families involved. however. and the monetary fees involved could be a significant source of income for the church. and endogamous. even if no financial transactions occurred. even if the parents subsequently married with the church’s permission. permanent. Christian marriage was inflexible. This stipulation was moderated to four degrees of consanguinity in 1215. contrition. The potential spouses were not permitted to be related to each other. but church authorities might have considered even this fact to be advantageous: couples who were unable to follow the rules could receive a dispensation to marry from their bishop or the pope. and exogamous (marriage outside the family unit). Thus. How successful was this policy of extreme exogamy? It is likely that the church knew that their laws would be impossible for laypeople to follow completely. but by 1225 they were more or less fully formed and they were in fundamental (and deliberate) opposition to the secular laws of marriage found in Western Europe at the time. except in the most distant ways. since the seven degrees was completely impossible to uphold by that time. Early church law forbade marriages within seven degrees of consanguinity (blood relationship). and even if the consent took place without any witnesses. and extreme unction or last rites). children who were born out of wedlock but whose parents then married could be legitimated and considered heirs at common law. marriage. especially kings who had few enough appropriate marriage partners as it was. the church restricted tremendously the possible marriage partners for medieval people. Church law even defined legitimacy of children differently from secular law. such as England. If two adults consented to marry and they were not already married to other people.The Family in the Medieval West
37
The Roman Church’s laws concerning marriage took a long time to develop. Godparents and their families and stepkin were also forbidden as marriage partners. then the marriage was considered to have occurred even if it was never consummated. however. which meant that a couple who shared a great-great-great-great grandparent could not marry. Blood kin were not the only people a person could not marry.
. let alone finding one to whom they were not related. The church did not make marriage an easy institution to maintain. The church considered a marriage lawful on the basis of the free consent of the two people entering into the marriage. confession.

between the local clergy. Indeed. In particular. reflects the longstanding tension between the religious and the secular systems: although most people consider their religious ceremony as the formation of their lawful marriage. King Henry VI. were unable to make claims to the throne of England even after John married their mother. modern American traditions of marrying in a religious ceremony. Nevertheless. the signature and seal of the witness/ notary public/town clerk. and the fee paid in order to receive the license to marry are what constitute a legal marriage in the United States. It is hard to pin down exactly when the process whereby the free peasant proprietor. who lived on his small personal holding with his family. both the civil and the church courts of law saw a tremendous amount of litigation about marriage conflicts occur. between their families. if English Common Law had been able to supersede church law. The competition between the laws of the secular kingdoms of western Europe and the laws of the church was never resolved. son of King Edward III and the Duke of Lancaster. The Beaufort family retained important connections to the royal government—and the Tudor dynasty that eventually usurped the throne derived on the maternal side from the Beauforts—but no Beaufort male ever laid legitimate claim to the throne. although whether these were perceived as changes by medieval people themselves is probably debatable.38
Family Life in the Middle Ages
This circumstance had important political as well as familial ramifications. Katherine Swinford (his fourth wife and longtime mistress). which often takes precedence over the processing of a marriage license produced by the state government. In the late fourteenth century. In medieval western Europe a lot of negotiation between the parties interested in marrying. The Medieval Family and Socio-Economic Change from the Early to the Later Middle Ages Certain social and economic developments that began during the Carolingian period and continued thereafter altered the experiences of the medieval family of all social classes. required Duke John to take a formal oath that his young family would be barred from succession: it was not a given that they could not lay claim to the throne. his children’s offspring would have had a legitimate claim to the English throne after the death of John of Gaunt’s great-grandson. The ambiguity of the law. Yet. especially after the mid-thirteenth century. the transformation of the lower classes in most of western Europe from a combination of slaves and free peasants to a somewhat more uniform population of semi-free serfs altered the ways in which families were constituted and limited certain opportunities for personal development within the family. however.
. the illegitimate children of John of Gaunt. and between the secular authorities tended to occur in order to minimize the conflicts and make the system more workable. in fact their signatures on the marriage license.

referred to as serfdom or villeinage. Many historians believe that this process began at the end of the Merovingian era in areas that had been originally Roman. Moreover. Germanic groups dwelling in the Roman Empire adopted the terminology of the Romans in that they called their aristocratic landed holdings fundia (singular. both were transformed into serfs living on a lord’s manor and working a lord’s demesne (the land the lord retained for his own use and income) in exchange for land and a dwelling occurred. slavery was still relatively widespread. but labor was not. replaced by a system in which the laborers were personally free. however: many parts of western Europe— especially those where colonization was being encouraged—had both serfs and free peasants in their populations. but were tied to an aristocrat’s landed estate and could not leave it to pursue opportunities elsewhere. fundium). plantation style farming on huge state-owned farms called latifundia (singular is latifundium) fed the populations of Rome and Constantinople. These latifundia were worked almost entirely by slaves. and land became increasingly scarce. since both Romans and Germanic tribes used slaves for different kinds of labor. who lived on an owner’s estate. Other Germanic peasants worked their own plots of land alongside the larger aristocratic fundia. By the millennium. however the process of transformation occurred. and pursue different kinds of employment in different places. In the earlier period. personal chattel slavery had largely disappeared in western Europe (although it still existed in the Mediterranean). These semi-free peasants did not own their dwellings or the land they tilled for their own use: these were given to them by their lord in exchange for their labor and certain monetary services. These different forms of economic transactions freed serfs from the limitations of villeinage. manufactured tools and weapons. This system. but these were usually worked by a combination of slaves and day laborers called colonii. and acted as domestic servants. peasant labor services began to be transformed into rents and other kinds of economic exchanges. was a relatively efficient way of maximizing production at a time when land was plentiful. when the population began to rise. Both slaves and free peasants also worked mills. but that the Viking invasions accelerated this process significantly.
. reaching unprecedented levels in the thirteenth century. historians identify a real difference in status between peasant laborers in the early Middle Ages and their status by the millennium. bequeath property to their children. In the late Roman Empire.6 Nevertheless. Still other historians dispute that an identifiable process occurred and claim that it was an ad hoc and unsystematic evolution of the relationship between peasant laborers and aristocratic landowners. The system was not rigid.The Family in the Medieval West
39
and the chattel-slave. Other historians see this process as being more artificially imposed during the Carolingian era and as accompanying a political and military system known as feudalism. They could leave the lord’s estate.

One significant effect of serfdom was that it limited the people peasants could marry. this was not usually a problem. however. The limitation on potential marriage partners also limited the numbers of people who could marry at all. this was not always the case: daughters could inherit family holdings. peasants probably married in their mid. so it is possible to make some general observations about how this legal category affected the medieval peasant family. In order to gain permission to marry.40
Family Life in the Middle Ages
Still. As mentioned above. for at least three hundred years most peasants in western Europe experienced some form of villeinage. which was a kind of tax on illicit sexual activity. Historians have demonstrated that peasants married at significantly later ages than aristocrats. They and their families could. If the happy couple lived on the same manor. or god-kin. As a result. the parish priest could also gain some income from the fines married couples had to pay in order to get around those restrictions. had to pay a fine called a merchet. It is likely that new families could not form until the parents of the potential couple were either dead or old enough to retire. although they had to negotiate for a place to live on the manor and could not marry without paying for the lord’s permission. lose their holdings and. Serfs had to gain permission from their lords in order to marry at all.7 The result of this situation was that peasant marriage tended to be extremely endogamous—marriages occurred between neighbors within the same manor or nearby adjoining manors. It is also possible that some peasant men and women could not marry at all because they had no means of independent support. Whereas members of the nobility usually married between age 14 and age 20. Although this was usually the potential bride. The situation could get very complicated if the potential spouses came from different manors and had different lords. so that they could turn over their land and dwelling to the new couple. step-kin. suggests that peasant families were never very large: infant mortality was extremely high and the later age at marriage also limited the fertility
. although some historians suspect that this kind of sex-tax might have been imposed on all married couples regardless of whether they had the lord’s permission to marry or not. not between people who came from other parts of the region. at best. Examination of manorial records in England. this kind of marriage strategy could run afoul of the church’s restrictions on marrying kin. so the serf making the move could easily be the potential groom. Couples who tried to avoid securing the lord’s permission and who formed informal unions got into even bigger trouble than those who went through the traditional channels.to late twenties. especially if they were members of large families with lots of children. the couple had to compensate the lord who would lose the labor services of the peasant who would be moving to the other manor. The merchet could be much more expensive than the marriage fine. at worst.

Feudalism (not to be confused with manorialism. so building the population of manors seems to have been more important to lords than retaining demesne lands in their own hands. or would become eternal bachelors: unmarried men attached to a noble household who had little chance of acquiring a fief unless they were lucky enough to marry a wealthy heiress or widow. Feudalism probably evolved from a combination of the Germanic and early medieval warband. see the combination of feudalism. not just because of church restrictions on whom they could marry. might also have experienced changes in their marriage strategies. political. after the millennium. and the Roman system of clientage. The relationship between the development of feudalism and changes in aristocratic marriage patterns and the formation of the aristocratic family is very complex and much debated. such as Georges Duby. changes in inheritance patterns. but nonetheless do see some changes resulting in the period between 1000 and 1300 that might have something to do with changes in social. and nuns. For them. Feudalism and the Medieval Aristocratic Family The aristocracy. or lord. The knight pledges to provide military and administrative services to the lord and the lord grants the knight a fief—usually land (a manor)—and protection. Some historians. this triple threat resulted in marriage becoming fully exogamous (going outside known social and kinship networks) and limited to the eldest son.8 Finally. in which men gained elite and influential men as patrons in exchange for their political support. and the influence of church laws concerning marriage as fundamentally altering aristocratic marriage and notions of the family. and military systems. monks. as priests. and one or two daughters. there was a common perception that there was plenty of land to go around. such as the Crusader States and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.The Family in the Medieval West
41
of wives. Other historians see feudalism as having much less influence. It was a very complicated system—not the neat pyramid that often serves as a graphic model of it—and exhibited tremendous variety from region to region in Western Europe and the areas westerners conquered. which involved groups of unrelated men pledging loyalty to a chieftain who gave them treasure as well as allowed them to live in his house.9
. until the mid-thirteenth century. The remaining children would be dedicated either to the church. the eldest son is the heir). Some historians identify the socio-political and military system popularly known as feudalism as influencing the formation of marriage among the knightly and noble classes. who would inherit everything in a system known as primogeniture (that is. with which it is often incorrectly combined) in its simplest form creates a relationship between a member of the knightly class and an aristocratic landowner.

Families employed many different parental strategies for ensuring the wellbeing of their children. and this author. Although aristocratic families did tend to have a lot of children. although essential to the maintenance of the family fortunes. Firstly. girls would be exchanged to be raised. Indeed. children were shared among the families in these feudal networks.10 Although primogeniture did alter the amount of land each child in the family received. such as Theodore Rivers. the relationship between a knight (also known as a vassal) and a lord was reciprocal and had political as well as socioeconomic importance. such as cousins. Amy Livingstone. other members of the family were included in these patronage networks. Thus. there does not seem to be any evidence suggesting that only the first few to survive to adulthood were married off and that the remainder were relegated to careers in the church. in which boys and. Thirdly. even when the family was not able to offer their younger children any significant material benefits. This was seen as a civilizing feature of a child’s education. sometimes. and professional employment. including marriage. a certain pecking order could develop that could have emotional consequences as children grew up. dedication to the church. nieces. it can be virtually impossible to include Italy in generalizations about legal and social systems. Moreover. as will be discussed in greater detail in chapters 7 and 8. each with a unique institutions and certainly with no
. and kingdoms. through a tradition of fosterage. Medieval Italy: A Hybrid Legal and Social System When discussing medieval western Europe. lives as mercenaries. Children were highly valued and their futures seem to have been the topic of considerable discussion and planning. Kimberley Lo Prete. Italy itself was a complex collection of independent city-states. ones that could often determine whom one married. they took great pains to ensure their establishment in other households or professions. see the situation unfolding as far more subtle and less absolute. or sitting by the fire as perpetual maiden aunts. There is little evidence of children being thrown out of their houses and left to make their own way in the world once they reached adulthood. Networks of knightly and noble families developed as a result of these relationships. however. Secondly. provinces. Feudalism did affect family organization and formation in important ways. or indirectly through family associations. this view suggests that all the children nonetheless were invested in the family fortunes either directly through inheritance. and what one’s profession would be. since the eldest son (if there was one) did inherit the bulk of the family property—at least the property passed down from his father—this meant that his younger brothers were subordinate to him to some extent. not as a way to discard un-needed or superfluous children. where one lived. and nephews.42
Family Life in the Middle Ages
Other historians.

older Roman traditions persisted in some places. Daughters tend to be undercounted in public records. In the central and northern regions. Unlike modernday cities. On the other hand. than girls elsewhere. they sometimes looked different. girls of the urbanized elite were more likely to have some level of formal education. but by the millennium. as well as in political and economic importance. As a result. the basis of urban organization was the guild: associations based
. the laws of the city-states were similar to each other. influenced by both Roman and Lombard law. however. especially in the north. In southern Italy and Sicily. Italian marriage law. dower was more important than dowry. with different definitions of family and unity. Peasants were more likely to own their land. In the medieval city-states. and the Medieval Family Early medieval western Europe had few cities. Normans conquered the Lombard duchy of Salerno and the Byzantine province of Sicily. Italy did not become completely feudalized or manorialized. however. both blood relations and unrelated but economically linked associates. As a result of these differences. in the early medieval period in particular. then. through a tutor. Even when these nuclear families maintained their own households. but not identical. were more or less identical to those of their northern neighbors. In the regions north of Rome. By the thirteenth century. Slavery was somewhat more common in Italy than elsewhere in Europe. Medieval urban families were more or less nuclear in organization.The Family in the Medieval West
43
unified legal system. experienced a deep north-south divide. Cities. than being isolated in castles in the countryside. for example. which has led some historians to speculate that the practice of female infanticide (the killing of female babies) might have been practiced at times. each city developed its own legal systems. They established there a kingdom notable for its lack of continuity: the Norman kingdom of Sicily was the most culturally diverse region of the medieval world. and frequently maintained their own legal codes unique to each urban area. In the Norman south. they maintained important linkages to other families. dowry became more important. urban centers were growing in both size and number. Urban families were organized for different economic purposes than were peasant or aristocratic families. Family strategies in Italy. in urban townhouses. Aristocrats were more likely to live in cities. Law. There seems to have been a more segregated social system between male and female spheres of activity. so even though they often shared values. medieval towns were largely independent of the county or regional authority. family structures could be different in Italy as well. often held royal charters granting them independence. where independent city-states developed. as the northern portions of the continent did.

family systems also included children not related by blood to the nuclear family. this stricture against marrying outside the guild made it difficult to abide by church laws against marrying cousins.
. social. For one thing. and the pressure often wielded by guild governors on masters to marry only women from fellow guild families. Since the apprentices assigned to guild masters lived in the masters’ households. economic. All of these issues will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 10. educated youngsters as apprentices. and god-kin.44
Family Life in the Middle Ages
upon specific professional. and engaged in political governance. For example. determined the training curriculum of apprentices. peasant families. which to this day houses the offices of the mayor and council of the city. and strategies for maintaining workshops following the death of the master. or manufacturing professions that operated as the bases for political. and they were far more intimately involved in making those changes themselves. especially when the family’s own biological children were sent to other households to be educated and trained. As a result. trade. Conclusion Although it is clear that changes in law throughout western Europe during the Middle Ages influenced developments in the structures of and relationships within medieval families. Guilds were in complete control of the day-to-day lives of their members. laws were only one part of the process. As a result. Perhaps the most important guild provisions for the medieval urban family were the prohibitions against apprentices and journeymen being able to marry. in Florence the Lana guild oversaw trade in wool. including regulations about the treatment of apprentices. This seems to have been viewed as a way to acculturate children and a means by which guild masters could enhance their political and social networks. The center of medieval London’s political and legal world was its Guildhall. except perhaps over the very long term. step-kin. Women—especially wives of masters—therefore oversaw the maintenance of a complex family unit. decided which members could marry. and established prices for goods that were manufactured or traded by guild members. patronized churches. and educational structures. They authorized workshops. The regulation of guild marriages was very important nonetheless to the survival of the guild and its monopoly. Like the marriages of both peasants and nobles. an entire body of urban laws grew to manage these associations. attempts to protect women and girls from sexual exploitation. they resisted changes that could adversely affect the ways in which they operated. Aristocratic and merchant families were more immediately affected by changes in political and legal structures. living in isolated villages with little access to the makers of law and legal theory. probably were little affected by these changes.

Peasant lifestyles. came under attack by religious professionals who were determined to mold this vibrant but un-Roman. culture into a more Christian ideal. For everyone.The Family in the Medieval West
45
The long transformation of the Roman Empire in the west into the feudal kingdoms that were fully established by the year 1100 certainly prompted profound changes in family organization and structure. and therefore somewhat alien. fluid. Regional variations occurred. the relative stability of European life until the massive upheaval of the Black Death 350 years later. on the other hand. Forms of marriage that had been flexible. In these changing times. however. while elite families jockeyed for position and the peasantry tried to adjust to changes in governance and administration. such as Italy. were probably virtually identical to those of hundreds of years before. a member of the urban elite might feel at home as easily in Bruges or Ghent as in Florence or Siena. and useful to the Germanic population. but perhaps improved. family structures changed as well. The nobility of high medieval Europe became in a sense more cosmopolitan. but also between vassals themselves. The influence of Christianity on pre-Christian Germanic traditions. especially in parts of Europe. which were far less affected by political upheavals or changes in legal systems. Feudal relationships fostered different kinds of marriage alliances. because of the increased level of security they experienced. especially as they often had to seek appropriate marriage partners from far away. Germany. Manorialism developed as an economic system that both exploited peasant labor and defended the peasant class from attack by grouping families into village communities under the lord of the manor’s protection. After the millennium. the newly formed Germanic kingdoms experienced a great deal of tension between long-standing traditions and the efforts of church leaders to Christianize and Romanize their cultures. ones that could operate as linkages between lords and vassals. northern Spain. and the development of a unique hybrid culture all contributed elements to medieval family life in western Europe. A noble family in England probably lived very similarly to its counterpart in France. In the same way. where cities began to grow and urban elites took over positions of authority from the rural aristocracy. In the early Middle Ages. Disruptions from invasion and internal conflict between 800 and 1000 led to changes in social organization.
. or Sicily. led to a similar stability in marriage and family life. changes in economic focus. Peasants tied to the land as manorial serfs found their marriage choices limited by the requirement they secure the lord’s permission. They were only partially successful. Feudalism developed as a political and military system that reflected both the fragmented nature of royal authority and the need for systems of patronage and alliance that could be preserved through formal relationships between lords and vassals. on the one hand. The church’s demands that medieval people conform to the laws against consanguineous marriages began to affect the kinds of marriage alliances people formed.

Society. 2. 10. 1964). Joan Nicholson. 1978). 1991). trans.” Past & Present. and the translation by David Breeden at “Lone Star. See http://www. Marc Bloch. 15–30). 8. Elborg Forster (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Beowulf is available in numerous translations in print and online. available both in print and in The Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Feudal England: Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth centuries (London: S. See. for example. 1909). See Beowulf.. See. The History of the Franks. 5. but starting points for these discussions are Henri Pirenne. trans.edu/halsall/basis/gregory-hist.” http://www. and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France. Feudal Society. 1270–1400 (New York: Cambridge University Press. Mohammed and Charlemagne (New York: Dover Publications.. ed.html. for example. “Seigneurial Control of Women’s Marriage: The Antecedents and Function of Merchet in England.fordham. 7. which became the position of the Roman church. 4. no. the Lady.” http://www.edu/halsall/basis/bede-book1. Horace Round. Theodore John Rivers. and Bede. Sonnenschein. 1983). 9. and Demography in Halesown. 6.html. Life. Women in Medieval Western European Culture (New York: Garland Press. Marriage. Medieval Women (Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ed.lone-star. Eleanor Searle. Mitchell. The Knight.
. fordham. 3. Notes
1. 99 (1996): 123–160. trans. These debates continue. Aristocratic Women in Medieval France (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfthcentury France. 82 (1979): 3–43 and the debate in Past & Present. coeternal. “Sons and Mothers: Family Politics in the Early Middle Ages” (pp. “Feminae gloriosae: Women in the Age of Bede” (pp. 1999) and Linda E. 79–100). Nelson. Arian Christianity modeled the Trinity as a pyramid: the Son and Holy Spirit are subordinate to the Father. proposes an un-model of the Trinity: three in one.46
Family Life in the Middle Ages
family life centered on the cooperation and partnership of all its members: that requirement would never change. Barbara Bray (New York: Pantheon Books. “Medieval Sourcebook: Bede (673–735): Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation: Book I. and Pauline Stafford. especially. The standard texts for Gregory and Bede are: Gregory of Tours.html. but they are also available online: “Medieval Sourcebook: Gregory of Tours (539–594): History of the Franks: Books I–X.” http://www. Various law codes of the early medieval Germanic kingdoms have been edited and translated.fordham. for example. 2001). See. 1999). and J. See. 2 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1974). “Queens as Jezebels: The Careers of Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History” (pp. http://www. trans.edu/halsall/basis/beowulf. See. ed.html. Nicene Christianity.html. Ed.net/literature/beowulf/index. Early medieval queens and their families are the subjects of several essays in Derek Baker. Georges Duby. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Rev. trans. 31–78). Janet L. especially.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook-law. with the remaining four books of the text following and linked to the first book’s page. Zvi Razi. Lewis Thorpe (Baltimore: Penguin Books. 1980). Leo Sherley-Price (Baltimore: Penguin Books. no. and of the same essence. 1978) and Duby. and Death in a Medieval Parish: Economy. Francis Gummere at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

Western medieval historians often overlook the eastern empire—indeed. historians consider the abandoning of the city of Rome and the consolidation of power around Greece and the imperial city of Constantinople to have signaled a profound cultural change: the evolution of the so-called Byzantine Empire (Constantinople was originally called Byzantium).). Romulus Augustulus. until quite recently. from modern-day Croatia to the border between Afghanistan and Turkey. when the capital of the eastern Roman Empire. in the medieval Middle East. Romania. as far north as Bulgaria. Constantinople. most American students were taught that the Roman Empire ceased to exist when the western half divided into Germanic kingdoms after 500— but the culture of the Late Roman Empire did indeed continue to develop in the east. he considered the empire to have continued in the east until 1453. they ruled them more or less indirectly as client states rather than as imperial acquisitions. and Hungary.c. Nevertheless. This changed dramatically once Augustus gained control of the imperium—the sign
.3
The Family in the Byzantine East
Introduction: From Roman to Byzantine Although the Enlightenment historian Edward Gibbon saw the western Roman Empire as “falling” at the death of the last western Roman emperor. When the Romans gained control over the Hellenistic kingdoms in the eastern Mediterranean in the 150 years between the end of the Third Macedonian War and the victory of Augustus over Marc Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium (14 b. in 483. and in southeastern Europe. fell to the Ottoman Turks.e.

Syriac. and Constantinople in Latin. even though the majority of the population in the east were native speakers of Greek and a number of different Semitic dialects (such as Coptic. Some were more remote Hellenistic outposts guarding the border of the newly expanded empire—Thessalonike (the northernmost city of Greece). It took hundreds of years for the city to achieve these goals. By that time the importance of the eastern half of the empire had grown to such an extent that the emperor of the newly unified empire. and the cities of Pontus (the northern shores of the Black Sea). The official language of the Roman administration was Latin. made up of Roman families who emigrated to the new imperial city. which he renamed after himself: the city of Constantine. moved to Constantinople so that its elite class—the Patricians—soon rivaled that in the ancient city of Rome itself. not because the efforts of emperors to make the city primary were deficient. Constantinople and the eastern Roman Empire underwent radical changes in culture. A separate Senate was established in Constantinople by Constantine.e. governed directly by Roman appointees and defended by Roman soldiers. as well as prominent groups from other major imperial cities. Constantinople was intended to be equal to Rome in importance and the principle city of the eastern empire. quite a few Roman families. but because the loss of Rome to Germanic conquerors. and so on. it was still connected to Rome linguistically and culturally. The first of these cities to be separated from the empire was Rome. made the decision to transform the little city that guarded the entrance into the Black Sea from the Aegean into a new Rome. Antioch. Although Rome remained nominally connected to the imperial center of the Roman Empire after the rest of central and northern Italy had been taken over by the Lombards in 600. and of Antioch (in Syria) and Alexandria (in Egypt) to Muslim conquerors—the three most wealthy and powerful cities of the empire—made Constantinople the only imperial center to be retained by the eastern so-called Roman authorities. it broke away completely with the creation of the Frankish king Charlemagne as Christian Emperor of the West in 800. The entire Mediterranean world became part of the immense Empire. and Afghanistan (east of modern-day Turkey).
. Although the eastern half of the empire was ruled separately from the western half beginning in the late fourth century. and geographical extent. The small provincial but ancient city of Byzantion (Byzantium in Latin) was one of those outposts until the fourth century c. Many of these were originally Hellenistic cities—Alexandria. which came to be governed by its bishop (the so-called pope) in the sixth century. Eventually. population. Armenia. and Hebrew). Dura Europus (in modern-day Iraq). Municipal centers run by professional administrators and the Roman army were established throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Constantinopolis in Greek. Between 500 and 800.48
Family Life in the Middle Ages
of his personal authority outside the boundaries of Rome itself. Constantine.

Large portions of the southern Mediterranean territory had been conquered by a newly resurgent Sassanid Persian empire. replaced by a far more energetic dynasty begun by Emperor Theodosius I (r. Rome still retained a loose connection to the emperor in Constantinople. the eastern Roman Empire was a very different place than when Constantine celebrated the founding of his imperial city. where he succeeded his uncle. was more or less lost a mere six years later with the successful conquest of the Lombards. the cities of Antioch. Justinian was not interested in recovering the majority of western territory. Justinian was born and raised in the easternmost outpost of the western empire. and with it. and Spain were lost to Roman dominance forever. to the imperial throne of Constantinople. even to the point of separating the empire into two halves for administrative purposes. was a much harder nut to crack: the destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom took 20 years and much of Italy was ultimately abandoned by the eastern emperor. Britain. including the city of Rome. his entire military and political career was based in the Greek-speaking Eastern Empire. and Ostrogoths led by King Theodoric in Italy. and the region was ruled from Carthage until the Muslim conquests of the next century. The western Empire had long before broken up into separate Germanic kingdoms. Italy. and Jerusalem were in Persian hands. Justinian was able to retain only the southernmost portion of Italy (Calabria and Abruzzi). Although he spoke Latin. however. This unity was shattered soon after the death of Theodosius II in 450: between 450 and 500 the western empire ceased to exist. who ruled as kings in the north and as dukes and princes in the regions between Rome and Calabria. Historians consider the transitional period between late Roman and Byzantine to have occurred during the sixth-century reign of the Emperor Justinian (r. all of Italy north of the city of Taranto. Despite his best efforts. the Balkans region between Italy and Hungary. with North Africa ruled by Vandals. The former was accomplished within five years.The Family in the Byzantine East
49
Constantine’s sons and grandsons continued to focus on the eastern half of the empire. so he pursued a re-conquest of both North Africa and Italy. each headed by a Germanic dynasty (this is discussed in chapter 2). and the eastern city of Ravenna as imperial territory. Constantine’s dynasty was defunct. 527–565) and his co-ruler. but Gaul. The imperial administration
. By 600. By the third quarter of the fourth century. although Christianity was tolerated in those regions. The eastern Empire was ruled by Greek-speaking emperors living in the Greek city of Constantinople. Sicily. It was divided eventually by its Germanic conquerors into small independent kingdoms. but he wanted to control the Mediterranean. 379–395) that survived until 450. Justin. The Theodosian dynasty is notable for its energy in retaining control over the entire empire and holding off the Germanic advance into the western Mediterranean by a combination of military brilliance and canny diplomacy. Ravenna itself. Alexandria. Empress Theodora. however.

and the structures of the church were invented there as well. and the Emperor ruled over both the church and the state. The original biblical texts were written in Greek. Although the Persian conquerors were eventually routed and the cities in the southern Mediterranean recovered by the Emperor Heraclitus (r. and they characterized themselves as semi-divine representatives of God on earth. Christianity was fundamentally a Greek-speaking religion from its very beginning. and presided over the first ecumenical council of the universal (in Greek. Nevertheless. This led Emperor Theodosius I ultimately to make Christianity the only legally sanctioned religion in the empire in 395. Constantine himself was baptized only on his deathbed. sometimes growing. hence the term “Catholic”) Church at Nicaea. although his mother Helen was a devout believer and he allowed all his children to be baptized in their youth. 610–641). Indeed. The church of Rome and the use of Latin were both afterthoughts in the religion for centuries. ceased to exist entirely. Constantine might have been the first emperor to legalize and promote Christianity. and western Anatolia. the religion originated in the Greek-speaking cities of the southern Mediterranean. katholicos. Constantine himself could be called at best only a nominal Christian.50
Family Life in the Middle Ages
was also conducted in Greek and the culture of the administration was increasingly influenced by Persian culture. Even though he promoted Christianity. 306–337) is best known for an act that initially had very few repercussions: the legalization of Christianity in the Edict of Milan in 313. the Greek islands. but the traditional religious centers of Antioch and Alexandria and the secondary centers of Rome and Jerusalem were far more important to the development of the church than the patriarchate diocese (major bishops are known as Patriarchs in the Orthodox Church) established in his namesake city. Slavic and Hunnic invasions into the northern portions of the empire and the Muslim conquest of the southern Mediterranean ultimately shrank the borders of the Byzantine Empire to Greece. Religion in the Byzantine Empire The Emperor Constantine I (r. had significant connections to professionals in the church. Eunuchs (castrated males) ran the administration and even oversaw the army. The Senate. called prostration. it is likely that his religious zeal was considerably less evident than the picture presented of him by the fourth-century historian of the church. with independent Christian kingdoms in Armenia and Pontus. until 1453. This Byzantine Empire would continue to exist. only with the final separation of the eastern and western empires did the Roman church come to attain a separate and independent
. Christianity was promoted in Constantinople and the traditional Roman imperial cult was minimized. Eusebius of Caesarea. even in its impotent imperial form. Emperors demanded that all supplicants perform obeisance. sometimes shrinking.

John Chrysostom. literacy in Latin was confined to the Mediterranean region. was completed in 405. and German. the Byzantine Empire. or the Authorized (by the Bishop of Rome) Version. Latin became a professional language used by the clergy and legal professionals and not by the common people. Byzantine Christianity was also somewhat more authoritarian and imperial than Roman Christianity.The Family in the Byzantine East
51
existence. Christianity developed differently in the eastern Roman and Byzantine Empires than it did in the West. the Byzantine church was far more intellectually focused. Flemish. were unable to understand even the prayers they were taught to recite. Jerome’s Vulgate. The dominance of the Greek language in Christianity in its first three centuries might have contributed to the ultimate dominance of Greek as the language of the Byzantine Empire. Arguments about the nature of Christ and the Trinity became the stuff of marketplace debates. the controversy not only drove
. Dutch. most people in western Europe. and French and the Germanic languages of Old English. This had an impact on family life since theological conflicts could tear family unity apart. When Iconoclasm (literally. Within a hundred years. Latinspeakers did not have access to an accurate translation of the Bible until St. but it became more or less a branch of the imperial government from the days of Constantine to the end of the Byzantine period. were also more urbanized and more densely populated than the western provinces. The eastern Roman Empire and its successor. the Germanic invasion and settlement from Roman Britain to Spain would succeed in replacing Latin with Germanic-Latin hybrids that would eventually develop into the Romance languages of Spanish. and Origen being only a few who influenced the development of Christian theology enormously. the destruction of religious images) was promoted as orthodox doctrine in the east in the eighth and ninth centuries. unlike Byzantine Christians. Athanasius of Alexandria. with almost all the great theologians of the religion coming from Byzantine cities: Gregory of Nazianus. As a result. Thus. St. In the west. which was at least at first a more flexible system because of the need to Christianize and incorporate so many groups with few ties to Rome and Roman culture. Christianity originated in an urban setting and thrived in the eastern and southern cities. Italian. The emperors acted as patrons of the church and the elaborate decoration of Christian churches and the growth of equally elaborate ritual in the Byzantine liturgy came to mimic the grandiose decoration and elaborate pomp of the Byzantine imperial court. The Patriarch of Constantinople was in theory the head of the Byzantine Church. Since the sacred texts were written in the vernacular language of most of the inhabitants—Greek—anyone who had achieved basic literacy could read them. Individual Christians were more intimately involved in the theological disputes that rocked the early centuries of Byzantine Christianity. By this time.

conquests. Historians of the last twenty years have begun to fill in the blanks in the social history of the Byzantine Empire but their revelations are based on sources that do not necessarily present a view of daily reality. legal. Damascus in Syria. they rarely give the reader a picture of the way people lived in the Byzantine Empire. and literary records from the Byzantine period. while it reunited families separated by their allegiance to or rejection of icons. preserved at times through its adoption by the Ottomans after 1453. the religious controversies of Byzantine Christianity were resolved in ways that further separated the east from the west. There is not a lot about common people or common family issues in these kinds of records. Ultimately. and internal conflicts that occurred in Byzantine territory between 500 and 1500 (including the Crusades) resulted in the wholesale destruction of much of its material culture. resulted in the disappearance and destruction of administrative. Rather. histories of the imperial families written by court historians. but also affected families profoundly.52
Family Life in the Middle Ages
the eastern and western churches apart. did not help the conflict between Christian authorities in Rome and Constantinople. The long Ottoman occupation of Greece and the Balkans as well as of Mesopotamia. Most rural Byzantine Christians were devoted to the idea of the sanctity of icons. and legal treatises interpreting Byzantine law. The many invasions. although information about the urban elite family is growing. While all of these sources are valuable. The ultimate failure of Iconoclasm as a religious doctrine. and the archives in Antioch. The loss of these irretrievable artifacts from a culture that was profoundly literate and that relied fundamentally on written records hampers our understanding of many aspects of Byzantine culture and society. Most of the records that do exist today come from the religious culture or from the imperial administration. and Baghdad (the last two centers of Muslim cultural production) also burned a number of times. which ended in Greece in the 1820s and elsewhere only in the twentieth century. social historians have been basing their conclusions on sermons by important Byzantine theologians. The libraries of Alexandria and Constantinople were destroyed several times. but the more educated urban population—and people who had come into contact with Islam. One problem is the survival—or lack of survival—of Byzantine records and texts. Sources for the History of the Byzantine Family Historians actually know very little about the organization of Byzantine families below the level of the high aristocracy. In addition. instead they provide
. the relatively recent breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the lack of interest in Byzantine social history until very recently both have worked against attempts to recover the records of medieval Byzantine families. which was highly critical of the use of images in Christian worship—rejected them.

you would discover that Byzantine jurists were still debating the power of the paterfamilias over adult children. the issues surrounding betrothal and marriage. the Roman notion of the paterfamilias had been abandoned. but since the overwhelming majority of Byzantine images are religious in nature. because without the Corpus Iuris Civilis—the Body of Roman Civil Law—we would have little substantive information on the ideals of family land and the way those ideals changed over time. was constructed more along traditional Greek lines than Roman ones: nuclear families. replaced by a more Greek paternal system in which daughters remained under the authority of their male relatives but sons were emancipated (given their freedom to act independently) at the age of majority.e. The Byzantine Empire’s legal system dated back to the original Roman Laws of the Twelve Tables and continued through every imperial reign’s additions and alterations..The Family in the Byzantine East
53
information on the ways in which authorities thought Byzantine people ought to behave. Byzantine Legal Culture and the Byzantine Family Unlike the western European Germanic kingdoms. although the basic outlines of the Byzantine family remained largely untouched by this massive legal system. and legitimacy or illegitimacy certainly were
. this was the first time in over a thousand years of Roman legal practice that such a task had been attempted. The family. especially given the sacred nature of Byzantine iconography. There is also a tremendous amount of material available about the families of imperial dynasties that has been mined effectively. Nevertheless. Thus. especially when legal and religious issues are included. over marriage.1 Nevertheless. In addition. When the emperor Justinian commissioned the collection and codification of all Roman law into one massive encyclopedic source. certain elements of the Byzantine family can be discussed in some detail. too. This is fortunate for the historian of family life. religious) from civil law in the way they were separated in the west. the intersections between religion and politics were also embedded into the legal system so that it became difficult to separate canon (i. the Byzantine Empire was thoroughly imbued with both ancient pre-Christian and Christian culture. the emperor’s family bore little resemblance to that of the common peasant farmer or urban laborer. and over the Byzantine family. even though they acknowledged a relationship to more extended kin were the norm rather than the extended family groups found in traditional Roman and Germanic practice. Unfortunately. Byzantine art is probably the most well-documented aspect of the culture of the empire. inheritance. this also works against understanding the family: the Holy Family is scarcely an appropriate model. If you were to look up the words “marriage” and “family” in a modern translation of the Byzantine-era Corpus iuris civilis.

eventually developed strict regulations about marrying close kin. the age of adulthood for the purpose of marriage) for men is 15 and for women is 13. the portions of the family property that would be granted to the surviving spouse. although among people of lower socio-economic status.” Elaborate arrangements regarding property are to be written into the contract. One of the eclogues of eighth-century Emperor Leo III.
. which included stipulations as to the dowry of the bride.54
Family Life in the Middle Ages
affected significantly by the body of Byzantine law that developed from the Roman period until the end of the Byzantine Empire. provides an example of how marriage in early medieval Byzantine culture ought to proceed. the marriage gift the groom intended to give to his bride. A marriage contract was negotiated. dated 726. and identifications of guardians for the children should the husband die before his wife and the wife not automatically get guardianship. or some combination of these people along with a professional matchmaker. although this changed fairly dramatically as the centuries progressed.”2 The legal contract was the culmination of marriage negotiations and was probably more important than the ceremony itself. “the wife being their mother. with the imperial family in particular being able to manipulate their marriage strategies in order to try to guarantee the production of a male heir. so the option of divorce was likely to have been less available to couples belonging to social levels below the imperial family. the parents of the bride-to-be and the groom-to-be (if he was already an adult). like western Christian canon law. although divorce was not unheard-of in the Byzantine period. Finally. the celebration of a marriage and its contractual arrangements could easily have occurred more or less at the same time. made before “three credible witnesses according to the new decrees auspiciously prescribed by us [by Leo]. Marriages were arranged by either the parents of the potential couple. Indeed.” The contract was to be in writing. This was seen as the minimum age of marriage at the time. and there are children. The law states that the “years of discretion” (that is. shall be contracted. she shall control her marriage portion and all her husband’s property as becomes the head of the family and household. the marriage was considered more or less permanent. Before the eleventh century. This activity was probably condemned strongly by the religious authorities at all times. which stipulated that three witnesses were required for the marriage contract to be considered valid. Consent of both parties and of the parents was required: “both being desirous and having obtained the consent of their parents. it is possible that divorce became more easy to accomplish over the years. Once contracted. if the husband dies before his wife. Byzantine law. These arrangements were often made in writing and followed the legal practice set out in the Byzantine civil code known as the Eclogues. Marriage in Byzantine society was a highly formalized system with legal foundations in both Roman and Greek law.

the Byzantine church began to expand the condemnation of marriage between close kin to a larger number of relations. however. then he was obligated to fulfill the
. marriage between people who share blood ties) was resisted strenuously by the aristocracy and imperial families in particular. Byzantine law also regulated the lives of family members to some degree. he was also supposed to ensure that the widow’s portion represented a full quarter of the estate. especially in the early Middle Ages. even though they probably could not exercise that control while their husbands were alive. on the other hand. Roman law had been wary of the idea of spouses being able to give each other gifts. the process of enforcing church rules against consanguineous marriages took more than two hundred years to succeed. recovering even a quarter of the estate must have been nearly impossible. If a woman died before her husband. Once widowed. According to the historian Angeliki Laiou. women could seek recovery of their property from their late husband’s family. was required to keep his wife’s dowry intact. is unknown: if the family happened to be impoverished by bad business deals or financial mismanagement. however. for instance. They were not able to sue their husbands in court. however. If the couple had had children who were still minors at the time of their father’s death.3 Once the marriage had taken place. nevertheless. Women whose property had been lost or frittered away by their husbands had few recourses while they were married. This was because Byzantine law gave women more or less full control of their dowries. but among all the medieval cultures. This form of marriage was also very common not only in the ancient world and the Roman Empire. Unlike Roman law. however. Marriage between cousins and even uncles and nieces guaranteed that the bulk of the property would remain undivided. but marital property still fundamentally belonged to the paterfamilias. except in the writing of their wills. a woman gained control of at least a quarter of her husband’s estate as well as of her dowry. The laws regarding inheritance and guardianship of minor children were quite complicated as well. then the widow usually became the guardian over both her children and the entirety of the estate. this push against what were termed consanguineous marriages (that is. How effective this might have been. especially among the aristocracy. though. If widowed. Byzantine Greeks followed Roman law in encouraging the writing of wills that specifically delineated bequests to specific people. should he die before her. much as had occurred in the west at an earlier time. The preservation of family property when legal systems mandated its division among various heirs usually spurred people to practice endogamy. this was not so much the case in Byzantine law. Like western European society. The husband. wives could make wills without requiring the permission of their husbands.The Family in the Byzantine East
55
endogamy—the marriage of people related to each other—was common. Beginning in the eleventh century.

In addition. He did not have the kind of absolute authority over the other members of the household that the early Roman paterfamilias enjoyed. which made it possible to adopt a child as one’s heir. but one with significantly less public power and virtually no public persona. they were expected to be veiled more or less from head to toe (possibly one of the origins of the Muslim burka.56
Family Life in the Middle Ages
bequests in her will. however. elite wives were supposed to be physically restricted as well and discouraged from being seen in public. or gynekaia. in the absence of sons. wives oversaw the maintenance of the house. however. Nevertheless. As in the ancient world. When the Fourth Crusade of 1204 resulted in the conquest of Constantinople and the rest of Greece
. sources for the imperial family. Illegitimate children were expressly forbidden from inheriting property. Daughters received dowries from the parents’ property. On the other hand. daughter. or to disperse her dowry to her next of kin if there were no children. but there are few sources that even mention them. although they were not members of the elite. The wife of the male head of household was also an important figure in the family. Different political situations might have affected the segregation and isolation of women in Byzantine culture. or invest family funds without their husbands acting for them. but paternal authority was comprehensive: the father ruled the household. the Roman laws of adoption. Byzantine law also followed late Roman imperial law in that all children in a family could expect to inherit something from their parents. able to retain a quarter of anything she brought to the marriage. but it is not clear how significant this legal prohibition was. and imperial women had many more opportunities for wielding political influence than women of other social classes. The presence of illegitimate children must have been fairly common in Byzantine society. Wives had no legal personality in that they could not engage in business. where women played significant political roles. or of being completely veiled. could have worked against the stigma of illegitimacy. as well) and accompanied by a man. but this likely represented only a small part of the estate if they had brothers. Women of less exalted status did not have the luxury of maintaining this façade of respectable womanly behavior. buy or sell land independently. some women did engage in business. The Structure of the Byzantine Family At the center of the Byzantine family was the father. According to religious sources. such as theologians’ treatises on the ideal wife. rarely describe empresses and other imperial women as being confined to women’s quarters. When they did go out. and they might have suffered a loss of status and respect as a result. but the bulk of the estate still would go to the eldest son or. He was. a task which could include the requirement to be able to read at the very least.

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by western European crusaders from France and Italy, western customs, which advocated less restrictive practices for women, might have moderated the stricter practices of previous decades. In addition, by mining different kinds of sources—not just the religious tracts that proclaim the ideals the religious community hoped to encourage among the lay population—historians have recently produced a somewhat different picture of the lives especially of women in the Byzantine world. In these newer views, Byzantine women were more visible in the public venues of the marketplace and the dining room and might even have abandoned their veils when among people with whom they were related even in public.4 Families were often extended, especially in the countryside. Multiple generations likely lived together and sustained the family both economically and socially. This is still the case today in Greece; historians suspect that the social structure of the modern-day countryside might not be all that different from that of the medieval past. Although the nuclear family was probably more the norm in urban areas, where cramped houses restricted the number of people who could be comfortably maintained, rural communities probably relied heavily on extended family for both livelihood and maintenance. The ages at marriage of Byzantine brides and grooms probably depended on social status even though the legal ages at marriage would have been theoretically the same no matter what social level the potential couple enjoyed. Elites probably married earlier and people of lower social status might have had to delay marriage for economic reasons—a pattern that exists in the west for the same period, thus making it possible that this occurred in the east as well. As mentioned earlier, eighth-century laws regulating marriage suggested that the minimum age should be 13 for girls and 15 for boys; by the twelfth century this had changed only a little: among elites, the age considered ideal for marriage for women was 12 to 15 and for men around 20. Nevertheless, the relative ages of husbands and wives could be extreme. For example, Emperor Andronicus I Komnenos (r. 1183–1185) was 65 when he married Princess Agnes of France, who had just turned 12. Although chroniclers such as Nicetas Choniates ridiculed the emperor for this marriage, extreme differences in age were not all that unusual among Byzantine elites, especially when widowers remarried. Men persisted in preferring adolescent virgins as their brides.5 This radical division in age must have made communication and companionship difficult. Since marriages among elites were usually arranged with the help of professional matchmakers, it was likely that the newlyweds were more or less strangers, so developing a relationship in which both parties were equal was probably impossible to achieve except in very unusual cases. Girls married in their mid-teens were expected to produce large families. Since infant mortality rates were quite high throughout the medieval world, this did not necessarily mean that families ultimately were very

58

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large, but certainly most women must have experienced multiple pregnancies starting at a very young age. Children in Byzantine families were raised largely by their mothers, at least until about the age of 12, when girls would be prepared for marriage and boys would begin their public education. The female rooms in the home were also the nursery and the workroom for the female members of the household. There is little material evidence that discusses the issue of blended families, half-siblings, or step-siblings except with regard to the imperial family, where competition among potential heirs could be fierce. Women whose husbands died were actively discouraged from remarrying by the religious culture, as were men whose wives had died, but the social and economic realities of the Byzantine world probably made remarriage an attractive prospect for both widows and widowers. Therefore, it is possible that households could contain a fair number of half-siblings. Evidence as to how they interacted, however, is lacking. Stories about the imperial family suggest that the extreme age difference that often occurred between husbands and wives could mean that mothers related more to their children than to their children’s fathers. Indeed, the eldest child could easily have been closer in age to his or her mother than the mother to the child’s father. In histories of the emperors, this situation sometimes played out as competition between the Dowager Empress and her young emperor son. In other circumstances, this could have encouraged cooperation between mother and son, perhaps even against the emperor-husband-father. The Byzantine imperial dynasty of the Komnenoi can provide an example of the ways in which the imperial family could operate both as an efficient and cooperative unit and as a backbiting and competitive power struggle. When Alexios II Komnenos (r. 1081–1118) became emperor, it was the result of a combined effort of both his natal family, including his formidable mother, Anna Dalassena, and that of his wife, Irene Doukaina, a member of the powerful Doukas family. Alexios’s long reign was marked by significant political and military upheaval, evidenced by his probably inadvertent initiating of the First Crusade. He was devoted to his mother, whom he crowned as Augusta rather than his wife, a move that did not endear him to her or to her Doukas relations. Anna Dalassena was, however, a supremely competent politician who juggled both acting as regent when Alexios was away from Constantinople and as grandmother to Alexios’s children, in particular his talented daughter, Anna. Court intrigues between Irene Doukaina and her mother-in-law led to further intrigues against Alexios’s chosen successor, his son John II Komnenos, creating more instability at the end of the reign. Anna Komnene, Alexios’s eldest daughter, became the court historian of her father’s reign. She was raised by her grandmother, Anna Dalassena, and her description of her grandmother suggests that the elder Anna was a truly remarkable woman.

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One might perhaps . . . blame my father’s decision to entrust imperial government to the gyneceum [the women’s quarters in the house]. But once you understood the ability of this woman, her excellence, her good sense, and her remarkable capacity for hard work, you would turn from criticism to admiration. For my grandmother really had the gift of conducting the affairs of state. She knew so well how to organize and administer that she was capable of governing not only the Roman Empire but also every other kingdom.6

Anna’s admiration for her grandmother and father, however, did not stop her from plotting with her mother to remove her own brother from the imperial throne and replace him with her own husband, Nikephoros Bryennios. Thus, the Komnenoi, although they were a tight-knit family who had to depend on each other in order to succeed, still fell apart when competition and conflict pulled the individual family members apart.

Conclusion The historical sources for the Byzantine Empire focus virtually all attention on the highest levels of society: the imperial dynasties and the aristocracy. This makes uncovering the typical Byzantine family very difficult, indeed. Nevertheless, certain general conclusions can be made. Byzantine ideals about marriage and family, based on legal and religious sources, expected individuals to be married quite young, especially women, and to be married only once. Families were expected to be large and husbands and wives were supposed to come from different lineages. Extended family relationships were ideally encouraged with respect to cooperation among family members, but discouraged with respect to intermarriage between them. The reality of Byzantine experience seems to have been far from the ideal, especially if one looks primarily at the ways in which the imperial family operated. Marriage between close kin, although condemned by the church, was vital to the maintenance of family property, as well as of its political power and authority. The age difference between husbands and wives could be enormous, especially when men remarried two or three times. Extended family relationships could be fraught with strife as siblings and cousins competed, sometimes violently, for political and economic advantage. The intrigues of the Byzantine imperial court encouraged all of the elites to behave like the imperial family. The possibility of supplanting the emperor and replacing one dynasty with another was very real. Below the level of the aristocracy, the view of the Byzantine family becomes very hazy, indeed. The kinds of sources available to historians of western Europe simply do not exist for the Byzantine east. As a result, a picture of the common Byzantine family must remain speculative. Historians assume that peasant family structures that existed in Greece during and

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immediately after the Ottoman period (from 1453 to Greek independence in 1832) probably resembled those that existed in the Byzantine period. Early modern Greek peasant families lived in large extended family systems in order to maximize their economic viability. There is some evidence that medieval peasant families in the Byzantine Empire could be tied to the land, much like western peasants were, especially if they lived on and worked on aristocratic estates. This situation probably did not alter the fundamental reality that all peasant families faced: that survival depended on cooperation on both a family and a community level. Since peasant culture tends to be both conservative and fairly similar from place to place, the experiences of medieval peasants in the west, which are better documented, might also be able to inform the picture of the Byzantine peasant. If that is the case, then Byzantine peasant families, like their western counterparts, probably married at somewhat older ages than did members of the upper classes. They probably had fewer children both because of decreased fertility and high infant and child mortality. Finally, they probably shared living space with multiple generations if grandparents were lucky enough to survive, but were more likely to live with siblings and their spouses and children in order to prevent precious land from being divided. The family life of non-elites in Byzantine cities is equally difficult to uncover. It is likely that the wealthiest members of the urban middle class mimicked the elites in their marriage patterns, living arrangements, and production of children. Poorer urban families were more likely to resemble rural families in their structure and survival strategies. One difference is the likelihood that urban families tended to be nuclear, since living space was quite limited and cramped and this would have discouraged multiple generations from living together. Despite the lack of sources, it can be stated that Byzantine families, like families throughout the rest of the medieval world, operated as intimate partnerships, Their very survival depended on cooperation. This could be a difficult task for young or newly married couples to accomplish, since if they were not related to each other by blood, they were probably strangers at the time of their wedding. Nevertheless, successful families learned how to work together and prosper.

Notes
1. The standard text in English is S. P. Scott, ed. and trans. The Civil Law Including The Twelve Tables, The Institutes of Gaius, The Rules of Ulpian, The Opinions of Paulus, The Enactments of Justinian, and The Constitutions of Leo: in Seventeen Volumes (Cincinnati: The Central Trust Company Publishers, 1932; Reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1973). 2. E. Freshfield, trans., A Manual of Roman Law: The ‘Ecloga’ (Cambridge, 1926), 72–74 and reprinted in Deno John Geanokoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society,

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and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 266–267. It is also found at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, http:// www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/byz-marr726.html. 3. Angeliki E. Laiou, Mariage, amour et parenté à Byzance aux XIe-XIIIe siècles (Paris: De Boccard, 1992), 21. 4. This is discussed by Alexander P. Kazhdan, “Women at Home,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 147. 5. Laiou, Mariage, amour et parenté, 96–97. 6. Anna Comnena, Alexiad, “Anna Comnena Commenting on Her Grandmother,” in Women in World History Curriculum, http://www.womeninworldhistory. com/dalassena.html. Although the modern spelling of Greek names in the Roman alphabet uses spelling that more accurately reflects the original Greek, many texts still use a Latinized form of Greek names. Thus, Komnene becomes Comnena in some texts.

.

The formerly migratory Bedouin were becoming acclimated to urban life once the cities of Mecca and Medina (both now in modern-day Saudi Arabia) became centers of the caravan trade.4
The Family in the Islamic World
The Arabs who occupied the enormous Arabian Peninsula between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf had done so for millennia. and Babylonians who succeeded the ancient Sumerians and Akkadians in the region. the Bedouins did not absorb either Greco-Roman polytheism or Judeo-Christian monotheism in significant ways. began to believe that God was speaking to him. Syrians. at age 40. Phoenicians. Both were international cities with substantial Christian and Jewish populations who established trading posts there to bring goods from the Persian Gulf
. Indeed. As a result. They were the Semitic neighbors of the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia (the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—now Iraq and the Persian Gulf nations) and were related to the Hebrews. Arab Bedouin culture was changing rapidly. when the prophet Muhammad. In the seventh century. despite living side by side with these two religious systems that dominated the Mediterranean region. Some Semitic communities were absorbed into the Hellenistic and Roman empires but the Bedouin culture—nomadic tribal communities who operated the caravan trades across the desert between the Jordan River and the Tigris—was never conquered by either Alexander the Great or Augustus. the animist and tribal-based religious system that had long been part of Arab culture persisted well after Christianity came to rule over all other religious systems in the eastern half of the Roman Empire.

and parts of central Asia). Roman. This does not mean that all of the people living in those regions (most of whom were Christians) converted to Islam. literally successors of the prophet) embarked on a rapid military expansion and conquest of the southern portions of the Byzantine Empire. the Abbasids. in the process of conquering the Iberian peninsula.64
Family Life in the Middle Ages
and India into the Byzantine and North African Christian empires and kingdoms. established their political center at Damascus. and science to Judaic and Christian theology into an Islamic-focused civilization. and Byzantine law. By the year 750. the Arabian peninsula. they created an international and cosmopolitan center of Mediterranean culture that incorporated everything from Greek. outclassing both the Byzantine imperial court of its day and that of the Carolingian emperors in the west. Hellenistic. The period between 800 and 1000 was a high point in Islamic intellectual culture. When the first dynasty of caliphs. Afghanistan. After Muhammad’s death. the Islamic world encompassed the entire southern Mediterranean. who moved their capital from Damascus (which remained the most important intellectual center of the Islamic world) to a new city. sacked Baghdad. at first only people of Arab descent were considered appropriate candidates to convert to Islam. Baghdad. in the ancient center of Semitic civilization. in order to reflect the growing importance of Iranian/Persian culture to the development of Islam. Spain. They also established a separate caliphate in Cordoba. in Syria. As a result. Although the caliphs continued to sit on the throne in Baghdad until 1258. philosophy. Muhammad was profoundly influenced by both Judaism and Christianity: although he had probably never read the Bible. Hulagu Khan. however. and Mesopotamian regions. his visions incorporated biblical imagery and stories and these were compiled after his death into the collection of prophetic visions known as the Quran. The court of the most famous Abbasid caliph. around 750. Arabian. most of the Persian Empire (including modern-day Iran. governance of their empire had been assumed by Turkish amirs. which became the Islamic state of al-Andalus. the Umayyads. Indeed. Arab culture’s centuries-long contact with Roman. Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Muslim rulers governed over overwhelmingly non-Muslim populations and local customs and traditions entered into Islamic religious and social culture as a direct result. portions of the Iberian peninsula (modern-day Spain). After the reign of Haroun. Haroun al-Rashid. the Mamluks. and nearly the whole of North Africa. his successors (called caliphs. who had been introduced into the Arab world soon after they
. Mesopotamia. and Greek civilization had imbued those geographical areas where most of the contact occurred with a hybrid culture that incorporated elements from all of the dominant societies in the Mediterranean. The Umayyads were followed. that is. by a second caliphate. was the most brilliant in the medieval world. the Abbasid caliphate went into a slow decline. In addition. when a descendent of Ghenghis Khan.

Catholic Christians were included in the mix of religions and cultures. however. Although the Seljuks acknowledged the hegemony of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The progression of the religion. to fast during the holy month of Ramadan. It is strictly monotheistic and believers are required to adhere only to five basic precepts. to tithe 10 percent of one’s annual income for the maintenance of the poor and needy. in the same way that Judaism and Christianity
. and to make a pilgrimage (Hajj in Arabic) to Mecca to worship at the Kaaba at least once in the believer’s lifetime. the Islamic world in the Middle Ages was phenomenally diverse. Islam is a more complex system that involves both universal elements derived from the religion’s sacred texts.” and a Muslim is “someone who submits. Around 1000. In reality. Islam. Christians and Jews mixed with Muslim converts throughout the Islamic world. nearly to their border with medieval India. such as the Seljuks. the presence of the Crusaders for two hundred years probably delayed the complete Islamicization of the southern and eastern Mediterranean region. encompassing a multitude of ethnic. such as Anatolia and northern Syria. Areas that had close associations with the Byzantine Empire. into a predominantly Turkish one. the Quran and the Hadith (a collection of sayings and statements/interpretations of the Prophet. The Religion of Islam The Arabic word Islam means “submission to God. in the years following Muhammad’s death. after its first flowering among ethnic Arabs. They transformed the ruling class.” As Muhammad seems to have conceived it. became an allencompassing way of life.The Family in the Islamic World
65
converted to Islam. was relatively slow. and cultural elements from the regions where Islam spread. Thus. also invaded the Abbasid Empire. Islam is an outwardly simple faith.” to pray five times a day. Further Seljuk incursions in the eleventh century resulted in a series of Turkish-dominated Islamic states that stretched from Palestine in the west to Persia and Afghanistan in the east. and religious identities. and established themselves as sultans of largely independent states throughout Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) as well as a substantial portion of Persia and into central Asia. however. which had been ethnically Arab and Semite. Although most of the populations eventually converted to Islam. other Turkic groups. When the western Crusades launched western European-style kingdoms and principalities in the midst of the Islamic Middle East. called The Five Pillars of Faith: to believe that “there is no god except God and Muhammad is his Prophet. never to hold the actual reins of power again. Even though the crusades ultimately failed to establish a permanent western-style state in the Holy Land. this process took hundreds of years. retained Greek Orthodox Christianity as their dominant religion for many decades. and his successors). in fact the caliphs were mere puppets. his family. cultural.

historians have begun to question the characterization of pre-Islamic Arab culture as totally backward. he did not do so until after Khadija died. and could not be sold in marriage. and to pull the Arabian peninsula’s population into the larger Mediterranean cosmopolitan community. Moreover. Muhammad declared that women could be fullfledged members of the Islamic community. some women in pre-Islamic Arabia exercised considerable personal autonomy. Khadija. According to the traditional view. where Bedouin traditions had been supplanted by social systems influenced more by Byzantine culture and by the frontier nature of the new and burgeoning urban landscape. Just as Judaic and Christian laws include extensive definitions of and regulations for family.66
Family Life in the Middle Ages
incorporated their own specific religious perspectives into every aspect of the life of the community of believers. elements of Muhammad’s own biography contradict the traditional view. Khadija was very active in the spread of Islam: she was one of the first converts to the new religion. many of which owe a debt to the legal systems of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. that women could own property. Islamic law. most historians believe that Muhammad was in fact determined to modernize (at least from a seventh-century perspective) Arab culture. known as the umma.
. The Status of Women and the Structure of the Family Although modern-day Muslim culture is often viewed in the west as socially backward. to improve the status of women. was a wealthy widow who was running a business in Mecca when she hired Muhammad as her overseer. although Muhammad permitted polygyny (one man married to several women) and eventually married 11 women. Daughters had no rights of inheritance and lived at the whim of their male relations. regulated the lives of Muslims. especially with respect to the status of women. He also is said to have declared that girl babies could not be killed on the command of their fathers. so do Islamic laws. known as sharia. the umma. could inherit land from their fathers. the community of believers. His first wife. according to the Quran. some historians are reevaluating the impact of Muhammad’s agenda on the urban centers of Mecca and Medina. She was considerably older than he when she proposed that they marry. Fathers could demand that girl babies be killed outright. For instance. women in Bedouin and Arab culture were legal non-persons who were considered the absolute property of their fathers. they also sold their daughters to other men as wives and sexual partners. He mandated. Clearly. Although this seems to have been the case with respect to the Bedouin culture that dominated the deserts of the central Arabian peninsula. While it is likely that Bedouin culture did treat females as wholly inferior to males in most cases.

is that the religion absorbed many different cultural perspectives from its inception and long after. with the possible exception of ‘Aisha. came from in Islam. too. Paul when he stipulated that women must cover their heads in church “on account of the angels. Nevertheless. however. many different legal traditions co-existed in areas of Islamic political dominance. The polygyny that was apparently common to Bedouin society met the strict monogamy of Byzantine Christian culture in all the regions conquered by the armies of Islam. the much-debated issue of the confinement. and veiling of women in Islam is a subject of significant controversy.2 The status of women before and after the establishment of Islam is this still a matter of debate. These practices are likely to have been cultural overlays with little to do with Quranic texts or Hadith interpretations of them. and were active in their communities before the coming of Islam. when they appeared in public. What is relatively clear. the influence of Byzantine culture on Islam was significant once the successors to Muhammad (the caliphs) began to expand Arab influence into the southern Mediterranean portions of the Byzantine Empire and ultimately conquered the empire of the Sassanid Persians. Certainly they were owners of property.”1 There is also evidence that many women were not veiled. it is not clear in any way where the practice of veiling in various degrees.The Family in the Islamic World
67
In addition. This was a holdover from ancient Greek and Roman practice. segregation. Islam was a flexible and adaptable system throughout the Middle Ages and some historians have viewed it in many ways as more enlightened than either Christianity or Judaism during that period. since they were usually transparent. especially those who worked in public. there were fairly significant populations of Jews and Christians living in Arabia and Syria at the time of Muhammad’s expansion of Islam. This might be particularly true in the case of family structures. and Spain. Since the Muslim population in those conquered territories was miniscule in comparison to the Christian populations. Therefore. North Africa. Finally. large portions of Byzantine Anatolia. The result was probably a hybrid of both traditions. at least for the first few hundred or so years of Islam’s existence. were able to inherit property from their parents. Veils could be thought of as actually alluring in Byzantine culture. There is some evidence that aristocratic women throughout the Mediterranean and even the medieval west did cover their heads and possibly their faces. his favorite. family traditions intermingled and altered the social landscape for Muslims and non-Muslims alike in those areas.
. the Byzantine states of Syria and Egypt. Indeed. did not apparently wear veils of any kind. The wives of Muhammad. and since shari’a was specific only to Muslims. These became targets for proselytizing and it is possible that the status of women in these communities declined when their families converted to Islam. from simply covering the head to the full burka. possibly emphasized by St.

who conquered
. for example. ranging from permanent monogamous families to polygamy and even temporary arrangements usually considered illicit in Christian culture.68
Family Life in the Middle Ages
Certainly the legal definition of family was more broadly conceived than the more rigid systems present in Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. since women’s status in general was based more upon their childbearing capacities than any other criterion. his wife or wives. children. wives. Since this arrangement was not automatic or traditional among Jews. with multiple generations living under one roof. suggest that not only three-generation households were common. fathers had to formally acknowledge every child (a system similar to that of Rome) and anecdotal evidence suggests that newborns were sometimes abandoned or exposed on the patriarch’s order. Children and the Extended Medieval Muslim Family With such a strongly patriarchal system. Even though infanticide was forbidden. but also extended households in which brothers lived together with their parents. The patriarch was also. or even demand a divorce on the basis that he was depriving her of status in the household. children were not necessarily associated only with their biological fathers. Women. it is likely that different household arrangements were common. it is not surprising that children were fundamentally associated with their fathers’ lineages. and had virtually autocratic powers within the family confines. and children. Extended kinship among males operated both as social networks and as political connections. For example. could favor younger sons with impunity. and their children—as the norm. however. Many different gradations of family organization. the great Kurdish general Salah ad-Din (aka Saladin). He arranged—and could sometimes dissolve—marriages for his children. it is probable that the Muslim household in Egypt originated this system and that it was adopted by their Jewish neighbors. Like Christian and Roman culture. A wife who was sexually neglected could demand access to her husband. The husband of more than one wife was also required to give all his wives sexual access and was not permitted to favor one wife over another. Sources concerning the Jewish community in medieval Egypt. were accepted in Muslim culture. required to educate his male children (literacy in Arabic was a requirement for all male Muslims) and to ensure that his daughters married men appropriate to their social station. however. the power of the patriarch was emphasized in Islam. Given the traditions of tribal organization that formed the basis of Arab culture long before Muhammad. Although sources emphasize the two-generation household—one man. He could also decide which children born into the family were to be raised by the family. and slaves were all subject to the authority of the male head. This was very important to the status of wives in the aristocratic Muslim family.

such interactions were discouraged. the strict segregation of the sexes was undoubtedly far less complete and women were visible in the very public environments of the marketplace. in contrast. Although polygamy is approved under Muslim law. centered first in Damascus and then in Baghdad. there were instances in which daughters apparently succeeded their fathers as rulers. did not intermingle after puberty. In families below the social level of the wealthy aristocracy. wives competed to raise their own status by promoting the interests of their own children. Women in harems had virtually no contact with adult men other than their husbands. The so-called harem of western imagination was very different in reality: the women’s quarters were anything but dens of inquity and decadence. This provision could—and did—encourage monogamy simply on the basis of economic realities. full and half-siblings intermingled freely. The courts of the different caliphate dynasties. Thus children were raised in large extended kinship environments where legitimate and natural. In addition. the urban streets. and women in the families of the caliphs were powerful and influential not only as patrons of culture but also as political and even military leaders. The ideal was that the sexes. There is also evidence of a significant level of competition between wives in the harem.The Family in the Islamic World
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Fatimid Egypt in the twelfth century and negotiated with the English king Richard I during the Third Crusade. and heirs were not necessarily eldest sons at any time and in any family. but boys were probably removed once they were old enough to recognize sexual difference. Since the eldest son was not automatically preferred over younger sons. however. including
. men are limited in both the number of wives they might have (four is generally considered to be the maximum allowed) and in the ways in which these multiple marriages ought to be organized. In the wealthiest households. but the sexuality of the women was strictly controlled. men could have a relatively limitless number of other sexual encounters. Shirkuh. and the rural farm. abounded with extended family networks. eunuchs might have guarded the harem. Indeed. but also for the ambitions of their children. Children were also housed in the harem. All the wives had to be treated equally. Although they were permitted to be seen by male members of their families. he also provided new structures for Arab Bedouin culture that were at times in direct conflict with the cultural traditions he had experienced growing up. a conception that was left deliberately vague in the legal literature and therefore permitted a variety of experiences for women engaged in polygamous relationships. was raised by his uncle. not only for attention from their husband. Girls in wealthy families were confined to the women’s quarters. Marriage and Divorce in Medieval Muslim Law Muhammad did not only provide the religious foundation for Islam. and succeeded him as sultan in Egypt.

Nevertheless. and even that the bride be able to divorce her husband under certain specified circumstances. Three elements were essential in the formation of a valid marriage (even the so-called temporary marriages required these): the consent of both parties. and it was considered illegal to consummate a marriage with a minor until she (or he) had attained puberty. Islamic law relied heavily on the adjudication of trained judges called qadis. Since the Muslim conquerors of the Byzantine Middle East. and the presence of at least two witnesses. and Spain were ruling over largely non-Muslim populations for at least the first hundred years or more. Whether women who were able to include these kinds of demands actually succeeded in having them enforced is not clear. This was not as much an issue in other medieval communities. the legal texts. a contract specifying the marriage gift or dowry the husband was providing the wife (this is called dower in western societies. who had the power to invalidate contracts or to reinterpret their provisions. if not independence. such as a stipulation that the husband not practice polygamy. although parents or guardians could arrange marriages for them. In general minors could not be forced into marriages. On the other hand. this law did make it possible for young women forced into marriages to obtain redress. puberty—considered to be around age 12 for boys and 9 for girls—was considered the age of independent consent. which is defined in the west as the property the wife’s family provides the bride).3 Women were permitted to demand additional contractual agreements during marriage negotiations. Although there was no fixed age of adulthood under Islamic law. Islamic law also had to address the issue of mixed marriages. she or he could renounce the marriage as long as it had not been consummated. that the level of the bride’s maintenance be included in the contract. since western Europe and the Byzantine Empire were
. control of their sexual urges was considered to be an admirable trait for all men to have and indiscriminate sexual activity was frowned upon. as will be discussed below. Moreover. Even though these protections were placed into the legal system. Legal marriages were conducted under strict guidelines as formal contracts. considered temporary marriages that could last only a matter of days.70
Family Life in the Middle Ages
concubines resident in the household (usually slaves or of lower social status than wives) and more casual alliances. in contrast to dowry. it seems fairly clear from literary evidence that parents—especially wealthy ones—arranged marriages for their children long before they reached the age of puberty. a marriage was not valid. Indeed. Once a child who had been married before puberty reached that stage. North Africa. coming as they do out of the religious books of the Quran and Hadith were open to significant interpretation and different regions of the Islamic world interpreted them in different ways. consent and the provision of a dowry were considered the most important elements and without them.

was the well-known system of the husband declaring in front of witnesses “I divorce you!” three times. and they did not suffer any specific legal loss of status. Muslims were completely barred from marrying Zoroastrians and Hindus. could be negotiated if the dowry amount was a source of family strife. Women. one that was harder to back out of. A similar arrangement was also made should a wife outlive her husband: although she could remain in her husband’s house and retain the maintenance she had received during the marriage for a year. but in fact that was only one of—and the most drastic of—the measures that married couples could take to end their union. although this. Once divorced. widows were also permitted to remarry once it was guaranteed they were not pregnant—in this case after 4 months and 10 days. The third. the wife retained the dowry her husband had given her. husbands could remarry other women immediately. but the ex-wife was required to wait at least three months. too. dhimmis. The easiest kind of divorce to un-make involved a husband divorcing his wife with a formal contract and then the couple waiting for three months before either reconciling or completing the divorce procedure. This waiting period was designed to ensure that the divorcée was not pregnant at the time of the divorce. so there are far fewer burdens placed upon married couples who want to dissolve their marriages than occurred in either medieval Christianity or Judaism. It is possible that the closer connections of Islam to Christianity and Judaism were important to this legal decision. Most westerners know about the formula of the husband declaring “I divorce you” three times in succession as a way to end a marriage. Marriage in the Islamic world is considered a contractual arrangement. Islamic law permitted Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women.4 Divorced wives usually received their dowries back if they were not considered at fault. were considered “People of the Book. as long as they were either Christian or Jewish (that is. but that the third time they divorce the resurrection of the union cannot occur until the divorced wife remarries again and her new husband either divorces her or dies. even though they. although
. rather than a religious obligation. Perhaps predictably. Another form occurred in which the husband declared the marriage dissolved once a month for three successive months. The legal system developed in the Middle Ages created mechanisms by which this rule could be maintained. too.The Family in the Islamic World
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both overwhelmingly Christian.” because their religions were based upon written texts. Texts in both the Quran and the Hadith literature state that a couple can divorce and remarry each other twice. In all three forms of divorce. and Jews living in either the Christian or the Muslim regions maintained strict regulations against intermarriage. or “People of the Book”). during which time her ex-husband was required to pay for her upkeep. on the other hand. were not permitted to marry outside their faith. and most final form. and the children were raised to be Muslims. This was seen as a more permanent form of divorce.

Representations of marriage in literary texts are also somewhat unreliable as road maps to the realities of Muslim family life. The cultural norms of the dominance of men. Although virtually none of these kinds of cases are preserved in documentary sources. with the exception of the presence of
. for determining whether a divorce could be obtained and which of the parties would have to pay the expenses. Her husband and his associates. Single women were viewed with considerable suspicion in Islamic culture (as they were in Mediterranean Christian and Jewish culture as well) and the requirement that they remain under the perpetual authority of some male or suffer a loss of respectability meant that widows and divorcées who could not remarry could find themselves in very risky circumstances. were not punished particularly rigorously for their actions. in competition with husbands. and whose marriage was both abusive and illegal. Nevertheless. women are often depicted as being wily and powerful. it was still nonetheless overseen by traditional Islamic law. especially for women and especially if fertility was the issue.6 There are no convenient contemporary depictions of peasant marriages. and for deciding on cases of abandonment and legitimacy of children. one that came from late medieval Egypt that was discussed by the chronicler Nur al-Din ‘Ali ibn Da’ud al-Jawhari al-Sayrafi formed the basis for an analysis of marriage and divorce law and procedure by the historian Carl Petry. Even though marriage was not considered a specifically religious act. the perceived inferiority of women. was permitted to divorce her husband and seek a new husband as if she were a respectable virgin. While it can be assumed that Muslim marriages were not all that different in quality from those in contemporary Judaic and Byzantine culture. The literary texts available to the modern reader are either religious or epic and many are legendary in character. The qadi (a judge in a sharia court) was given responsibility for adjudicating disputes between married couples. In these texts. since this would mean it was unlikely that the divorcée could remarry. They are seen as sources of both nurture and disruption and marriage is depicted both romantically (as in the famous stories in the Thousand and One Nights) or as politically significant (as in the Persian Book of Kings). as it was in western Christianity.72
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their children were separated from them. and the power of patriarchs to rule their households were ultimately more significant in people’s daily lives than were the legal and philosophical texts that form the basis of the intellectual community. sharia presents an ideal that is not played out in reality. and stepchildren. as exist in some later medieval western literature such as The Dream of Piers Plowman. In this particular case a young woman who was forced into marriage before she had reached the legal age of adulthood. there was some stigma attached to being divorced. much like other medieval legal systems.5 This one case—and there are so few examples that this must suffice—suggests that. sons. however.

8 The propagation of children was considered one of the most important duties of Muslim couples.7 Children could also be brought into a family by a form of adoption known as acknowledgement of parenthood. however. although if there were already children in the family unit. and supporting the family’s economic viability. there is little evidence available either to confirm or deny this assumption. and eldest sons were not as privileged in their position as they were in western Christian and Judaic culture. most of them dealing with failed marriages of couples seeking divorces. They do. however. The law stated that girls inherited one-half of the property inherited by boys. Legal texts. so the wealthiest Muslim families tended to be enormous. these readings are still not reliable indicators of the actual state of affairs. even passionate. as long-standing cultural traditions were maintained. The suras (the individual chapters of the Quran) and Hadith readings relating to marriage and the family present yet another perspective. Children. provide a less cheerful picture. and husbands and wives are described as equal partners in the family dynamic. with both nuclear and extended families existing side by side.The Family in the Islamic World
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polygamy in Islam. such adoptees could not inherit family property. with girls receiving considerably less than half of what their brothers inherited. and therefore might reflect the state of marriage at the time Islam was developed. Although extensive. Legitimacy. Muhammad seemed intent upon describing the responsibilities of women in the family as clearly as possible and these goals were emphasized in later writings of his successors. one in which abuse of wives and abandonment of financial responsibilities figure prominently. resembled in both size and organization other Semitic and non-Semitic families in the Mediterranean region. caring for the elderly. In these families. it was probably more typical for the number of children to be somewhat limited by both financial level and the high rate of infant and child mortality. but that stricture was apparently often overlooked. The issue of legitimacy was very important to medieval Muslim society because both boys and girls could inherit family property. and Illegitimacy Children from marriages or formal concubinage arrangements are considered legitimate under shari’a. Only children born within an approved legal relationship could be considered legitimate. although some Muslim groups were willing to consider children born at least six months after the marriage ceremony to be legitimate. Certainly the family needed to operate as a partnership to assure the survival of all its members. with dozens of children. marriages are often depicted as being loving. outline the concerns of the early leaders in Islam. Other Muslim families. It is likely that the mortality rate among
. In literature. Husbands and wives were committed to rearing children.

and provide glimpses of cultural attitudes toward women. Between this reality and the high rate of infant mortality. Central to this collection of readings is the primacy of marriage in Muslim culture. Depictions of Marriage and Women in the Hadith Literature Unlike medieval Christian culture. his wife Aisha. . The texts describe ideal marriages. the average medieval Muslim family could have been quite small. especially among young children and babies—so fertility was emphasized. Romanticized stories of life in the royal or aristocratic harem are as unreliable as depictions of aristocratic marriage in western courtly love literature. guard his modesty [prevents him from engaging in illegal sexual activity]. the main sources for discussions of marriage and family come from religious texts. Islam considered marriage essential for everyone in the culture: “O young people! Whoever among you can marry. the first caliphs who followed Muhammad. they are valuable in identifying dominant attitudes about the family. but it is difficult to uncover the reality hidden by these idealized views. and women made by Muhammad.”9 Several verses in this book go so far as to permit penniless men to marry as long as they are devout and have memorized their Quran suras (the chapters of the Quran): “I marry her to you for what you know of the Quran [as her dowry].”10 Men who cannot engage in permanent unions are permitted a form of marriage known as muta—a legal union that lasts
. and some of the Prophet’s more influential followers. Unlike medieval Christianity. These texts represent attitudes of the leaders of the religious community and present the ideals and cultural norms of the Islamic system. very high indeed. outline whom men can and cannot marry. because it helps him .74
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Muslims was more or less identical to that of other medieval people—that is. Family life was considered extremely private. poorer Muslim households must have experienced the same barriers to childbirth experienced elsewhere in the medieval world. should marry. but was not nearly as sanctified as a state of celibacy. identify reasons and procedures for divorce. . particularly those in which polygamy was practiced. which tended to view marriage as a necessary evil that controlled the sinful sexual urges of human beings. it was considered shameful for a man even to mention his wife or wives to another man in public. Poor diets and hard work could cause women to be infertile. the Quran and the Hadith literature. As a result. their families. Book 62 of the Hadith text Sahih Bukhari focuses on comments about marriage. Although some legal texts have been discussed by historians of medieval Islam. pre-modern Islamic culture has few equivalent sources. family. As such. While the wealthy Muslim family probably contained many children. where sources describing the day-to-day realities of married life and the family exist in some quantity. those that might describe real relationships between husbands and wives are very rare.

foster siblings (those who shared the breast milk of a wet nurse). These traditions were not confined to the Arabian Peninsula. Women who speak to the Prophet are considered shameful by his followers. hell) are female. Certainly the day-to-day activities of medieval Muslims had to lead to the kind of pragmatic partnerships that married couples in the other medieval cultures usually experienced. the position of women in the family. while most of those consigned to the “Fire” (i. Muhammad’s favorite wife. and the daughters. make better wives than do rich or influential women.. affect their capacity to inherit property and affected even the law of consent required for a valid marriage: a woman’s silence constituted consent.14 This ambiguity with respect to women certainly must have had some effect on the cultural attitudes about women in Muslim society. and frequent mention is made of some of his other wives. according to the Prophet. but women are presented ambivalently. and the medieval West. girls are mentioned only in the context of wealthy heiresses whose guardians covet their property. even a hostility. medieval Muslim culture had rich legal and cultural traditions that shaped the ways in which families were organized. Muhammad claims to have seen in a vision that most of the inhabitants of Paradise are male. the proper behavior of wives. When discussing children. Wives are to be treated honorably.e. the general impression of these readings is largely negative with respect to women. What is significant in this context is the tone of the Hadith texts when discussing women. especially prohibitions against marrying step-siblings. The ambivalence toward women did. the Byzantine Empire. and notions of extended family. mothers. where the legal and religious texts also exhibit a profound ambivalence.12 Scenarios of irregular or illegal marriages connect in the Hadith readings to discussions of divorce.
. definitions of legitimacy. but whether it seriously affected real women in the same way is difficult to determine.11 Reactions on marriage also appears in this volume. the umma. Finally. Marriage might be a necessary component to full membership in the Muslim community. toward women.13 Although there certainly are many negative statements about women to be found in the Hadith texts. or aunts of wives. and that extol the virtues of religious women who.The Family in the Islamic World
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for three days—although the text presents contradictions in this instance. Although several statements are attributed to Aisha.15 Conclusion Like the late Roman Empire. and the proper treatment of wives by husbands. however. since Ali (and therefore the Shiite form of Islam that considers him to be their founder) is claimed to have outlawed muta marriages. but they are not granted opportunities for independence. there are also texts that command men to protect women. that prohibit the exploitation of orphaned heiresses by guardians. in one series of statements.

They were the heroes of old. In those days. 1992).” International Journal of Middle East Studies 11. 10. 1999). 6. 454–462.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/062. no. 6–7. One of the strengths of Islam lay in its flexibility and willingness to adopt from and adapt to the cultures they conquered. Eleanor A. Number 58. 4. This is a little understood statement that probably refers to the episode in Genesis 6: 1–4 just before the Noah story: “The sons of the gods saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. Martin’s Press. Book 62. especially 9–124. Number 4. . They are also discussed at length by Leila Ahmed. It thus makes it possible to discuss Muslim families not as systems unique to a rigid and segregated system. so they took for themselves such women as they chose . no. Remke Kruk. which until the later Middle Ages was spread somewhat thinly through the largely Christian world. Muslim culture drew from a wide array of influences—Roman. Gavin R. 1998). such influences made it possible to coexist with the people they conquered. 7. “Conjugal Rights versus Class Prerogatives: A Divorce Case in Mamluk Cairo. 227–240. and Geoffrey Lewis. Notes
1. Jewish.
. For the Muslim population. for example. See. Carl F. Book 62 in USC/MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts. . Volume 7.” The New Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday. This is discussed by Rahman. 4 (1980): 451–465. see. men of renown. the Nephilim [or giants] were on earth.76
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Instead. ed. 5. Book 62. A good comparative study of the so-called classical and modern approaches to Muslim family law is Fazlur Rahman. “The Bold and the Beautiful: Women and ‘Fitna’ in the Sirat Dhat al-Himma’: The Story of Nura”. “A Survey of Modernization of Muslim Family Law. 9.html. especially. “Heroines and Others in the Heroic Age of the Turks. Women in the Medieval Islamic World.” 147–160 in Hambly. Rahman.usc. and Christian—that reflect the kinds of transformations experienced by the peoples of the Mediterranean world from the mid-sixth century on. but as embodying many of the characteristics of family life throughout the medieval world. “Survey.” 462. 8. was not unique to Islam: all medieval cultures practiced a form of veiling of women in public and those who could not be veiled because of their work or lifestyle were considered less than respectable. 3. Doumato outlines the arguments for all of the above issues very nicely in “Hearing Other Voices: Christian Women and the Coming of Islam” International Journal of Middle East Studies 23.” 462. et passim. when the sons of the gods had intercourse with the daughters of men and got children by them. 2. Byzantine. Petry. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press. G. sbt. Translation of Sahih Bukhari. http://www. a subject of so much controversy today.” in Women in the Medieval Islamic World. Hambly (New York: St. “Survey. 99–116. 2 (1991): 177–199. Even the veiling of women. Rahman.

York. already well integrated into the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean world. These form the origins of the Sephardic Jewish community. which eventually became the source for Hasidic Judaism. when Charlemagne encouraged Jewish settlement in the growing towns along the Rhine. many of the Rhineland Jews formed communities called at the time the Pietists. and Egypt. when they came in the wake of the Norman conquest—William the Conqueror actually relocated Jewish families from Normandy to England—where they settled in the cities of London. this ancient people. Jews settled throughout Western Europe as well as the Mediterranean. In time. In the thirteenth century. and Metz. The largest Jewish populations remained in Muslimdominated areas such as the Iberian peninsula. Once the Byzantine Empire’s urban centers had shrunk to only Constantinople and cities on the Greek mainland such as Athens and Thessalonike. since the Byzantine cities conquered by the Muslims. had retained larger Jewish settlements
.e. Norwich. Northern Europe had few Jewish communities until after 800. and Lincoln. Antioch.5
The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 c. Jewish quarters had emerged in all the major Mediterranean urban centers. especially Mainz. and following the last major revolt of the Jews in Roman Judea in the early second century. mostly in urban centers as these developed. Cologne. from Rome to Ravenna to Constantinople. spread even further. By the end of the Roman Empire in the West. Alexandria. its Jewish population also shrank. in the region of al-Andalus. and Carthage. such as Alexandria and Antioch. England received an influx of Jewish settlers only after 1066.

the protected status of Jews was a euphemism for the authorities’ exploitation of the Jewish community’s financial resources. As Christian regions. .
The twelfth century . but they also engaged in other kinds of work. As William Chester Jordan describes. probably because international trade had taken place for millennia in that region and Christian traders were not about to give up lucrative businesses to Jewish traders from Antioch or Alexandria. Eventually. Jewish populations in Western Europe were officially under the official protection of local bishops or of kings and feudal lords. Jews were pushed more and more into the business of money lending. and were encouraged by the Holy Roman Emperors as well as native princes. bishops. In the Byzantine East. and virtually all options open to them could also be used by Christian authorities for propaganda against them. especially in Western Europe.80
Family Life in the Middle Ages
than the Christian cities of the northern Mediterranean shore. hence the need to engage Jewish traders in the West. the leaders also considered those engaged in investment and trade to be usurers. Jewish bankers provided a vital service to Christian kings and nobles. to settle in the more sparsely populated areas of eastern Europe. and increasingly the essence of that status for
. Ukraine. the laws against usury were much more relaxed. More often however. when western laws relaxed strictures against Christians engaging in trade. Poland. This protection was sometimes actual. defined at the time as the lending of money at any interest. These communities formed the basis of the Ashkenazic Jewish community. depending on the region. the Jews were vilified by these same groups as exploiting the Christians by providing the very services that kept Christian institutions operating. such as when bishops in cities along the Rhine tried to protect Jews from being massacred by mobs headed to the Holy Land after the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095. these early medieval kingdoms were unable to encourage the development of urban trade among their own peoples in large part because of the western church’s laws against the practice of usury. including the Crusades. The modern phenomenon of substantial populations of Jews living in Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic). such as the kings of Poland. such as tanning leather. especially between the Mediterranean and the Germanic kingdoms in Gaul and Spain. Jews had very few options in Christian Europe when it came to ways of making a living. . At the same time. saw the formulation of a theory that being a Jew was a legal status in and of itself in feudal law. Jewish traders formed the basis for the international carrying trades. Jews were responsible for a great deal of the luxury trades. that Byzantine Christians considered to be impure. Since the church considered trade to be a form of money lending. when Jews fled Western Europe and England because of expulsions and persecutions. and Belarus began in the later Middle Ages. and even popes who relied on loans to fund everything from building projects to wars.

At times. where they were both a tiny portion of the population and almost entirely engaged in banking. 1180–1223). engaged in such wholesale exploitation of the Jews in England that. for instance. So they encouraged Jewish money lending. which encouraged the establishment of closely linked enclaves of Jewish settlement. and took legal steps to ensure that borrowers did not default on their debts. if they impoverished the Jewish community. Eleanor of Castile. Jewish religious requirements that Jews live near the community’s synagogue.” since he had already confiscated virtually all their wealth. encouraged the development of Jewish neighborhoods even when there were no laws restricting their living arrangements. princes. These regulations were often overlooked. and popes. This rendered the Jewish communities more or less superfluous in places like England. . even against the protests of the religious authorities. royal greed exceeded royal good sense. especially in the Middle East. medieval kings and feudal barons who wielded this authority had to temper their voraciousness delicately because. because they were forbidden to ride on the Sabbath. Fears of violence. permitted a raid on Jewish synagogues in the royal domain in 1180 in which all the moveable items sacred to the Jewish community were confiscated. An obvious way for a lord to get at the (perceived) wealth of the Jews in moneylending was by taxing their outstanding loans.3 Indeed. Contributions to the lord’s coffers were the price for these forums for adjudication. in areas where Christian monarchs encouraged immigration and settlement such as central Europe. he “was hardly depriving himself of a substantial source of future revenue. so Edward did not think twice about expelling them from the country. Laws in Christian regions also often forbade Jews from intermingling with the majority population. which tended to occur with more frequency after the First Crusade. The French king Philip Augustus (r. He then extorted the payment of a ransom for their return that amounted to “one and onehalf times what Philip’s government might expect in normal predictable revenue in an entire year. also encouraged Jewish families to cluster together into enclaves that were more easily protected
. Jews settled in cities and engaged in trade because both Christian and Muslim laws forbade them from owning land in many regions. when Edward expelled the Jews from England in 1290. by the end of the thirteenth century. and in the major cities where significant international trade occurred.”2 The English king Edward I (r. this convenient source of income would disappear. 1272–1307) and his wife.The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
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every Jew came to be his susceptibility to arbitrary taxation by the lord who exercised criminal justice over him . the papacy had liberalized its laws on money lending even further and Christian banks were becoming more significant in the business of managing the financial needs of kings. . Even so.1
Indeed. Jewish families in some areas lived in more loosely organized communities and Christians also lived alongside and within Jewish neighborhoods.

for example. which had a more liberal policy regarding the Jews until the seventeenth century. The Jews of medieval Europe were not merely ghettoized. the relationship between Jewish residents and the Muslim government and population was somewhat different. however. the Jews remaining in Europe (with the exception of Poland) were completely segregated from the Christian population. but they were deliberately removed from the main Christian population centers. Jews eventually were physically barred from living in areas of Christian settlement by being pushed into gated portions of the city. and from Austria. such as England and France. took up a number of streets behind the Theater of Marcellus. from a number of different German provinces beginning in the twelfth century. a term that changed in meaning to become associated with any segregated section of a city. an area that lay outside the abitato (the region of greatest population) of the medieval city.82
Family Life in the Middle Ages
from Christian incursion. Most of the Jewish communities in these areas had migrated by 1500 either to areas of the southern Mediterranean controlled by the Ottoman Empire or to Poland. The ghettos of Christian cities were teeming with life and people. particularly in areas where royal control of the Jewish population exhibited significant material exploitation. Eventually. Although the ghettoization of the European Jews occurred only at the end of the Middle Ages. The most famous expulsion occurred in 1492 Spain and all its subject territories. Jews in other kingdoms. from numerous places in central Europe in the fourteenth century. and Portugal by the end of the fifteenth century.4 By that time. when anti-Semitism was growing along with the Catholic Church’s concerns over the Protestant reformation movement and the failure of the Crusades. Jews were expelled from the kingdoms altogether. however. The ghetto of Rome. Provence (a largely independent region of southern France). but especially one in which Jews were housed. Lithuania. suffered expulsion centuries before this particular example. Although initially segregated by choice. The most famous enclosure of this type would eventually be an area of sixteenth-century Venice called The Ghetto (the Venetian spelling of the Italian word getto.
. when both Jews and Muslims were forced to leave following Ferdinand and Isabella’s unification of the Spanish kingdoms of Leon-Castile and Aragon with al-Andalus and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. meaning a jet or spray and referring to the foundries that were common in the area). France in 1306 (they were permitted to return in small numbers about a decade later but under highly restrictive circumstances). They were forced out of the area of the Crimea (the north coast of the Black Sea) as early as 1015. In areas under Islamic rule. the Jewish communities had to be careful to tread lightly in the Christian cities of Europe throughout the period: persecution and violence against them were common occurrences. including Sicily and Sardinia. from England in 1290 (they did not return to England and Wales until the seventeenth century).

rather than part of the religious doctrine. Jews were not only able to move around more freely in lands under Islamic rule. who was prominent in Fatimid Egypt in the twelfth century. The fundamental basis for the international trade relationships developed by Jewish communities in the Middle Ages was the family: business simply could not be conducted without one. if it were not for the occasional Christian monarch and the relative tolerance of the early Muslim caliphs of al-Andalus (if not the later Almohad dynasty) and Fatimid Egypt. Indeed. Jews were not the only religious group with second-class status: Christians living in Muslim-dominated areas were more or less treated the same as the Jewish communities. and rabbis. they were also able to engage in a wider variety of professions. an area that experienced a significantly more liberal attitude toward Jews and Christians until the conquests of Salah ad-Din in the twelfth century. such as the philosopher Moses Maimonides. Even teachers and rabbis tended to come from families that had developed traditions of producing intellectuals. Jews engaged in the carrying trades relied on family members setting up offices in all the major Mediterranean cities. Jews occupied a liminal space in the medieval world. their vast international networks grew in the High Middle Ages. therefore. and at worst actively persecuted and their destruction rationalized on the basis of religious fanaticism. who wrote a memoir of his travels throughout twelfth-century Europe and the Mediterranean. This did not prevent individual Jews from attaining significant status. or dhimmis who were not privileged to be full-fledged members of the political community. relied on family members in far flung cities to give them a bed and a good meal when on the road. They were a necessary part of every culture and society. the culture and history of the Jewish medieval population was substantially
. goldsmiths. Secondly. and jewelers created dynasties in their businesses because they were barred from the guild system that regulated Christian trade and manufacture. teachers. Indeed. the restrictions on Jews (and Christians) in Muslim lands were largely politically and economically motivated.The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
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For one thing. Whereas Christians rationalized the persecution and limitation of Jews on the basis that “Jews killed Christ. Jewish bankers. did not change significantly among Jewish communities in the Middle East. Judaism might have disappeared entirely. silversmiths. Casual travelers.” Muslims lumped them together with Christians and (to some extent) Zoroastrians as peoples of the book. but were at best considered second-class non-citizens. The emphasis on international trade that existed in Europe in the early Middle Ages. This made the preservation of families and culture exceedingly difficult and. such as the Jewish trader Benjamin of Tudela. with permanent trading posts appearing as far away as India in order to make the long-distance trade in spices and luxury goods more efficient (this is discussed in greater detail in chapter 10).

Not all of these were appropriate to the circumstances in which Jews found themselves in the medieval world. As a result. Many of these laws were protective of Jewish rights to property. even though there is no biblical law specifically prohibiting it. Since Jews were usually not permitted to own land. for the most part. as long as Judaic law did not contradict the laws of the region in which they lived. continued to be active. Jews in the Muslim Mediterranean world were far more thoroughly integrated into the community. one of the richest series of sources available for the lives of Jews in the Middle Ages comes from the storage warehouse of Cairo’s synagogue. Indeed. in internal matters at least. it was considered to stand. and the Legal Systems of the Medieval World Jews throughout the medieval world were subject both to their own law and to the laws of the land where they lived. Judaic Law. For example. Jews could be significantly disadvantaged not only to interact on an equal basis with Christians. Jewish law was based upon both the sacred texts of the Jews—the Holy Scriptures (what Christians call the Old Testament)—and on interpretations of those texts found in a number of rabbinic volumes. Royal courts were set up to adjudicate cases between Jews and Christians. In the Byzantine Empire. the western feudal laws of primogeniture (inheritance by the eldest son) were not relevant. but also emphasized their subordination to Christians. and definitions of legitimacy. Jews were allowed to regulate themselves. but also to control their own property and to preserve it from government interference. since they were not permitted to be destroyed. Jews living in Christian Europe and the Byzantine Empire were monogamous—one wife to a man—because Christian law forbade polygamy. Nevertheless. Family Structure. inheritance. such as the English Court of the Exchequer of the Jews. on the other hand. at least with respect to Jewish-Christian interactions. a structure called the Cairo geniza (a term that designates a sacred space where used or damaged torah scrolls were housed. which regulated the Jews living in the Roman Empire (especially after the conversion of the emperor Constantine). Therefore. but the Jewish community was permitted to regulate itself. the continuation of Roman law. The Hebrew Scriptures contain many laws regulating marriage. among them Mishnah and Talmud.84
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preserved by the family traditions practiced by the Jews of the diaspora (the dispersal of the Jews outside Palestine and Roman Judea). These geniza records are invaluable for historians to reconstruct the lives of everyday Jews living in Muslim Egypt and they also provide interesting insights
. especially in Muslim Spain and Fatimid Egypt. Jews living in Muslim lands. and that also housed the private papers of members of the community). followed Muslim practice and did practice polygamy if a particular man was wealthy enough to be able to afford more than one wife.

so they were more likely to practice the more traditional endogamy found there than the exogamy of the Rhineland Jewry. even though this marriage system was usually forbidden under both Christian and Muslim law. then it is entirely possible that Jews in Byzantine Constantinople
. In Muslim parts of the medieval world. and in the Muslim world it was based upon Islamic law. since canon law had very strict laws against consanguinity. It is far more likely. since most of the property under consideration was moveable and not based on land ownership. Marriages according to Judaic law were supposed to be endogamous: that is. the marriage of first cousins was seen as advantageous among many Jewish groups and was encouraged in certain circumstances when the family’s property was in danger of being divided through inheritance. even within their own families. In addition. it was also not forbidden. In portions of Europe where Germanic and canon law influenced Judaic practice. The information on marriage practices among Jews in the Byzantine Empire is so sparse that it is difficult to say whether their marriage patterns resembled those of the Christian west or the Islamic Mediterranean. Where Jews were allowed to own land. continued to exist at least as a possibility. such as the Rhineland region. Jewish marriage was regulated by the communities themselves. marriage to someone not closely related. Although marriage between generations within a family (such as an uncle and his niece) was relatively rare. in large part according to traditional interpretations of biblical law. under which a man marries his brother’s widow in order to impregnate her so that the dead man will have an heir. a situation that would have appalled a Christian living under his own system. the need to maintain the integrity of family holdings encouraged the marriage of cousins.6 This stress on marriage outside the family was also no doubt influenced by Christian practice. such as that of levirate marriage. Indeed. Additionally. traditional systems. however. Jews would have made an effort to conform to the prevailing norms of the dominant culture in order to avoid conflict. or sharia. the smallness of the Jewish communities in the west might have encouraged marriages that extended networks of kinship and friendship farther afield. but also influenced significantly by the laws of the regions in which they lived. Jews were more likely to practice exogamy. the marriage of close kin. the marrying of very close kin occurred regularly among both Muslims and Jews. however. If evidence from after the Ottoman Conquest of the Byzantine Empire in the 1450s has any validity for the period just before that time. that Jews living in the Byzantine Empire were much more Mediterranean and Middle Eastern in their cultural focus.5 Because in the Christian world marriage was subject to canon law. Jews were supposed to marry within their communities. The reasons for this difference lie in changing inheritance laws and less emphasis on maintaining family property within the family.The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
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into the international networks Jewish traders maintained in order to preserve their society.

divorce was both an easy and relatively neutral process.86
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or Thessalonike lived quite similarly to Jews in Islamic Cairo. the Christian hostility towards divorce made the system more difficult. and the younger a girl married. or the children might remain at the homes of their birth parents for a few years until they were mature enough to enter into a sexual relationship. where a Muslim man could marry a Christian or Jewish woman as long as the children were raised Muslim. but. parents. Unlike in Islam. Children who were married at such young ages did not always live together. not always and everywhere easy to obtain. Daughters still considered minors (that is. sometimes assisted by professional matchmakers. In other words. In Christian regions. One significant prohibition was that of marrying outside the religion. which usually was completed at around age 18. The “Fiddler on the Roof” image of the professional matchmaker actually has its origins in the Middle Ages. Young men might be sent to school for further study. In areas such as Fatimid Egypt (about which there is a great deal of information. Judaism requires in theory that the prospective bride and groom arrange their own marriages. Since Christian countries reacted violently toward women or men who might desire to convert to Judaism—it was illegal in all Christian countries to do so and the convert was considered a heretic who could be tried before the Holy Inquisition—this was probably a matter of community safety in addition to a religious obligation. only men could initiate the legal proceedings for divorce. divorce was possible. Studies show that children as young as nine were married and that marriage soon after reaching the minimum age was common. the more likely it was that she would have more children. they married close kin and engaged in long distance trade rather than money lending. under twelve and a half years of age) could have marriages arranged by their fathers. unlike in Islam. but such arrangements could be nullified once the daughter reached her majority if she refused to consummate the marriage. As in Islam. however. since the minimum legal age of marriage was 12 years for girls and 13 for boys. In reality. who could be a parent. Early marriages for both members of the couple were common. Jewish men and women were not permitted to marry anyone who was not Jewish. Unlike both Christianity and Islam. Antioch. Divorce was overseen by Judaic law no matter where the community might be living. so having children was of vital interest to the community. but a woman could demand that her husband divorce
. in part because communities of Jews were so scattered that professional matchmakers were to some extent needed to locate appropriate marriage partners. Unlike Christianity. with neither party being penalized for dissolving the marriage. until they were older. or Alexandria. perhaps skewing our picture of Jews living in Muslim lands).7 One rationale was that Jews living in hostile territory were in fear of death on a daily basis. either personally or through a third party. were significantly involved in marriage arrangements.

perhaps because of the influence from the dominant culture. At the same time. This was particularly true in the centuries before the invention of DNA testing. such as adultery or abandonment. even if a Jewish woman were kidnapped and forced to convert to Christianity (events such as this did occur. was profoundly patriarchal just like those of their Christian and Muslim neighbors. by both law and custom. Sometimes men who were going to be away for long periods of time performed a ceremony of provisional divorce in case they died and their widows were unable to establish the fact of their deaths. which was for the most part a highly patriarchal culture. especially during the Crusades era). legally mandated roles for husband and wife were far more focused on religious or ritual issues than on practical day-to-day ones. This line could blur. Dowries conferred a certain
. The legal requirements for a valid marriage included both the standard of consent and the monetary transaction of the dowry.8 In the Islamic world. however. Medieval Judaism. her community of origin would still consider her children to be Jewish. divorces seem to have been fairly frequent and rabbis might even compel a man to divorce his wife if she petitioned the rabbi and presented compelling reasons for wanting the divorce. but there was generally a clear division of labor between male and female spheres of activity. One of the more unusual aspects of modern-day Judaism is that Jewishness is passed from the maternal line rather than the paternal. In Western European communities this dowry could be quite substantial. sometimes as replacements for them. with women assuming public and business responsibilities sometimes in parallel to their husbands. Thus. The Jewish family. The dowry was also officially the property of the wife and she could complain to the authorities—usually the rabbi—if it was being used improperly by her husband. although it rarely included land. Indeed. recognized that the survival of their communities depended on a specific definition of what constituted Jewishness. Each could demand that the other behave respectfully and lovingly.The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
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her for specific reasons. Dowries were also important to Jewish marriage in the Islamic Middle East. where elaborate marriage contracts have survived in large numbers. This is discussed in greater detail in chapter 7. Jewish men were warned against becoming tyrants in their household and marriage was conceived as a partnership between husband and wife. the Jewish patriarch did not have absolute power over his family. It seems that rabbis in Europe were more reluctant to allow divorces that women might have initiated. but you can never be quite sure if your father is really your father. which was suspicious of women’s motives for wanting their marriages dissolved. This is sometimes explained by the statement that it is pretty easy to identify your mother (unless you are adopted). as the need arose. Unlike Roman law. Children were very highly valued and the birth of both boys and girls was celebrated.

eventually. however. Goitein mentions that the rest of the siblings were expected to kiss the hand of the eldest brother. Children were therefore vitally important in ways that neither Christian nor Muslim families experienced. in fact. and. Indeed. girls were taught by tutors and in the home and were expected to achieve basic literacy. Status within the family was regulated to some extent by Judaic law. In Egypt. Elder sons were expected to go into the family business. Although unable to attend formal yeshiva schools. S. the status of the mother in Jewish families might have been higher than it was in Muslim or Christian ones. Although a little later than the medieval period. especially those in Europe.10 In medieval Europe. with the eldest boy and girl being given a higher status than their younger siblings. without the interference of their husbands and they had legal autonomy in all aspects of their business. Married women in Europe were free to run businesses. Every Jewish community. which taught boys to read and write Hebrew. Indeed.9 Evidence of similar extended family relationships is lacking for Jews in Europe. the memoirs of Glückel of Hameln. as were Jewish and Muslim families in the east. and could work in public spaces without stigma. It was typical. for brothers to be partners in business. where nuclear family units was more the norm. and that Jewish parents—like their Muslim counterparts—referred to themselves as the parents of their firstborn son. boys were preferred over girls. teetered between stability and extermination. could invest in businesses. As in all other cultures of the time. girls and women were not as restricted in their activities. Yiddish. Arabic. the propagation of children was considered a religious imperative and all Jews were expected to marry and produce progeny. and children were expected to demonstrate marked respect for their parents.88
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amount of independence on wives: they gained bargaining power by reason of their personal financial stake in the marriage. along with the paternal parents. but unlike Christian and especially Muslim cultures. Jewish families were likely to have been structurally indistinguishable from their Christian neighbors. including money lending. Jewish households often comprised extended family units. Women could engage in trade. Relationships between adult brothers and sisters could also be close and widowed sisters might be welcomed into the household. Although the legal definition of family might suggest that the twogeneration nuclear family was the ideal. Women and Children in Medieval Jewish Culture The preservation of Judaism as a religion required the perpetuation of Jewish families. it was not unusual for brothers and their families to live in the same house. D. a Jewish woman living in Germany in the seventeenth century who raised a large family on her own after her first husband’s death and the financial bankruptcy and
.

suggest that the Judaic emphasis on education was not confined to males.The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
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death of her second husband. and Illegitimacy Since children were highly valued in medieval Jewish culture. known as Yiddish. This meant that girls whose education in Hebrew might have been lacking could still read and understand the tenets of their faith in order to impart them to their own children. Jewish administrators and philosophers were responsible in many cases for the day-to-day running of the caliphate. the laws restricting illegitimate children from inheriting were moderated in parts of Europe. Their status everywhere was enhanced by motherhood. Unfortunately. and Slavic dialects. but which was founded on a combination of Hebrew. Boys were sent away to school to pursue their studies. their training in household responsibilities replaced the higher learning expected of the boys. illegitimate children could be included among their father’s heirs and dowries could be provided for
. and the local vernacular language. Indeed. In Muslim Spain. no equivalent source exists to illuminate the lives of Jewish women living a few hundred years earlier. Those destined to follow their fathers in trade or industry left formal school once they had attained basic literacy to continue their training in the family business. German. women in Muslim-dominated settings were probably somewhat more confined than their co-religionists in Europe. but with significant status within the domestic household. but as they were married at such young ages. In Muslim Spain.11 The status of women in Jewish families depended to some extent on where they lived. but usually remained close to home for the first few years of their education. Inheritance. sometimes Greek. suggest that Jewish women were far more visible within their communities than were Christian and Muslim women of the time. Arabic. that was written using the Hebrew alphabet. Legitimacy. which she did by engaging in business in one of the largest commercial centers of early modern Europe. but it also became a significant literary language in its own right. Not only was this the common language of nearly all European Jews. The education of boys and girls was extensive and especially gifted boys were encouraged to continue their education to become teachers. and to the wives of rabbis teaching other women in their communities. central and eastern European Jews developed their own vernacular language. Eventually. Glückel had to raise 12 children on her own. references to discussions of scripture among men and women. rabbis. but they could expect the biblical precept to “honor thy father and mother” to act as part of the family’s governing principle. Latin. Girls were taught on much the same level. and intellectuals. Boys in particular were taught to read and write Hebrew. for instance. Although the position of wives under Judaic law presents them as subordinate to their husbands.

to do jobs considered unclean
. Jewish families and their migrations from one region to another brought different cultural elements to the far reaches of the medieval world. legitimacy issues that weighed so heavily among Christian populations. that enlivened daily life. and the biblical laws of inheritance stipulated that all children would partake of the parents’ estates in varying degrees. There is some evidence of competition between brothers in business. such as spices. where primogeniture was the norm and wealthy elites had huge landed estates to distribute. From the Roman period. on the other hand. In Fatimid Cairo. but their importance to medieval culture was immense. would never have acquired the vitally significant texts of Aristotelian philosophy without the efforts of Jewish translators who worked in Muslim Spain. and the financial means to develop a money economy. The eldest son received twice the amount of his younger brothers and girls all received a tenth of the family’s estates as dowries. There is some debate as to the size of Jewish families in the Middle Ages. most of them having only one or two children who survived childhood. but family size certainly had an effect on inheritance patterns. Jewish families were quite small. although such children were not considered to be the “real children of the father. such as Kenneth Stowe. Jewish families operated as virtual businesses. whether nuclear or extended. Conclusion Jews in the Middle Ages were a tiny population in comparison to those of the dominant cultures in which they made their home. with 8 or 10 children being common enough not to cause comment. the so-called Scholastic system. the intellectual culture of medieval western Christianity. Large families were apparently rare in those regions.”12 Indeed. These issues will be discussed at greater length in the chapters on marriage and children. but on the whole the political and social situation in which Jews found themselves in the Middle Ages probably encouraged cooperation within the community rather than the competition that might call the attention of the Christian or Muslim authorities to them. Christians were utterly dependent upon the willingness of Jews to lend them money. the distribution of property was somewhat easier to manage among Jewish families. did not matter as much among Jewish communities. since the more children who survived meant the more fragmented estates could become. Jewish traders and bankers provided Christians and Muslims alike with goods. Indeed. According to historians who focus on Jewish families in western Europe. The importance of Jews in the maintenance of medieval Christian society might in fact have contributed to the hostility Christians exhibited against their Jewish neighbors. with all members dedicated to the success and prosperity of the kinship unit. Since most Jews owned no land. the geniza documents record much larger families.90
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daughters born out of wedlock. chapters 7 and 8.

go to A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust. Michael Prestwich. 5. Stow. Edward I (Berkeley: University of California Press.myjewishlearning. 196–209. 7. 12. For a useful map and timeline tracing the expulsions of the Jews from European kingdoms and regions.” The American Historical Review 92. especially among the common people. Daily Life of the Jews in the Middle Ages (Westport. coupled with popular preachers who ranted against Jews as so-called Christ killers and who accused Jewish communities of everything from poisoning the public wells to murdering Christian babies.edu/ HOLOCAUST/gallery/expuls. See Stow and Norman Roth. Kings. D. 6. barons. Goitein. 9. Marvin Lowenthal (New York: Schocken Books. See S. 340. tr. This. especially 43–72. Inc. and to provide them literally with the spices of life. Roth. The French Monarchy. and Stow. ed.htm. Notes
1. 54–55. MA: Harvard University Press. 8. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln.” http://fcit. 2. 1992).com/ideas_belief/genderfeminism/Fem_Traditional_ TO/Fem_Medieval. This is discussed briefly by Alexandra Rothstein.usf. “Map of Jewish Expulsions and Resettlement Areas in Europe. and bishops were wholly dependent for centuries on Jewish willingness to be their bankers. 10. 1999). D. The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1989).com. “Gender and Feminism: Medieval Jewish Attitudes Toward Women. A Mediterranean Society. 5 (1987): 1085–1110. 30–31. Daily Life of Jews in the Middle Ages.htm. Chapter 9: The Family. Stow has explored the differences between customs in Europe and those elsewhere.” on MyJewishLearning. CT: Greenwood Press. “The Jewish Family in the Rhineland in the High Middle Ages: Form and Function. These are compiled and analyzed by S. A Mediterranean Society. William Chester Jordan. 2005). Jordan. led to Jews being savagely attacked at certain critical times. no. Jacob Lassner (Berkeley: University of California Press. See 344–346. http:// www. 4. attacked. Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe. Goitein in a multivolume work that is abridged as A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgment in One Volume. 29. 345. Prestwich discusses this situation at some length. 337–342. Jews nonetheless survived and contributed to their civilization. This dependence bred a cynical attitude of exploitative indifference in which Jews suffered because they were successful at the professions they were pushed into assuming. Goitein. 1977). Exploited. This dependence bred resentment.
. especially. 3.The Jewish Family in the Middle Ages
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by Christians (such as tanning leather). See. and always designated as second-class. 11. (Cambridge. Kenneth R. 1988).

.

. As in the previous chapters. Everything from the physical environment in which they dwelled to the ways in which the idea of family was used as a rhetorical device by the political culture affected the medieval family’s existence and modes of operation. Thus. this insight will enhance the general knowledge acquired through reading the chapters in section 1. and Jewish—under observation. Islamic. These topics are discussed in a comparative context. as they affected family life in the four medieval cultures— western Christian. historical context has been added when appropriate to help the reader understand how a particular topic interacted with historical issues that affected it. The chapters in this section each focus on a specific topic that affected family life in the Middle Ages.II The Environment of the Family in the Middle Ages
Medieval families did not exist in a vacuum. Byzantine. the reader will be able to gain greater insight into specific elements of family life and experience.

.

not mud and thatch. For all parts of the medieval world. perhaps somewhat less significantly. the living arrangements of medieval families depended significantly on socio-economic factors and. Nevertheless. on geography and location. Castles. it is easier to recreate the physical environments of wealthy and ruling families than those of poor families because the remains of medieval aristocratic and noble life have survived in much larger amounts: wealthy people throughout the medieval world built in stone and brick. rural families experienced different stresses in their environments than did urban ones. manors. especially those in Europe. Wealthy families lived in far more luxurious and spacious surroundings than did poor ones. The preservation of buildings is less common in the Byzantine east and still less in the Muslim Middle East of today. and townhouses makes it relatively easy to recreate the lives of the wealthiest 10 percent of the population of medieval Europe. Sources for Identifying the Physical Environment The survival of medieval castles. palaces. where the survival of records having to do with the poor has been far more successful. certain kinds of sources reveal a great deal about the lives of medieval peasants. and monasteries were far more likely to survive than the huts of medieval peasants or the tents of Bedouin caravan leaders. but archaeologists find it easier to locate and excavate stone buildings
.6
The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
Like families from all other historical eras and geographical regions.

for example. Documentary sources. Even King Alfred the Great is instructed in oatcake-making by the elderly peasant woman who allows him to hide from the Viking marauders in a famous (although apocryphal) tale told often in both folklore and history books. tidy. and ordered. cemeteries. Peasants live in tidy hovels where cool cider is always available to every passing knight errant. medieval life was not nearly so clean. palaces: all of these survive in very large numbers. In Britain. and manufacturing centers. a tremendous number of documents from the Middle Ages have survived. wells. Germany. townhouses. and new discoveries are changing that picture every day. What is
. or North Africa and not come across some physical evidence of medieval wealth and influence. letters. guildhalls. even building plans also survive. ranging from deeds outlining transfers of land and other property. In Central Europe. Sometimes document collections were destroyed in modern times. Sometimes unusual document collections come to light. monasteries. houses. The Environments of the Wealthy in the Medieval World The common perception of today’s students of medieval history is often a combination of King Arthur and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Castles. It is hard to travel anywhere in Europe. as occurred in Cairo in 1896 with the discovery of the Cairo synagogue’s geniza. modern-day historians have a great deal of information available to them about the physical environment of this small but influential population. cathedrals. especially from 1200 to the present day. Unfortunately. As a result. Turkey. they loom large in modern imaginations because of the things they have left behind. and Eastern Europe—not to mention Byzantine Greece. the Middle East. Knights and ladies live in luxurious castles where servants silently cater to their every whim.96
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than wooden ones. Identification of wood fragments in the ground have revealed the posts used to erect peasant houses in the English and French countryside. although the documentary record is richer in some places than in others. Aerial photographs taken by reconnaissance planes during World War II revealed the outlines of early medieval arable fields underneath the later medieval and modern outlines. Although only perhaps 10 percent of the population of the medieval world could in any way be considered wealthy—or even comfortable— and those 10 percent also comprised the politically enfranchised class. such as occurred in Dublin in 1922 and Naples in 1945. wills. All of these have helped to expand our understanding of the ways in which medieval families lived and worked. Excavations in European cities to build skyscrapers have uncovered medieval walls. and the Muslim-dominated Middle East and North Africa—collections of documents are much less plentiful. New technologies and techniques in archaeology have also expanded the historian’s understanding of the physical environment of the medieval family.

manufacturing. as did the war band (the young unmarried men attached to the household as the warriors of the chieftain’s private army) and the servants. This system would continue until the development of chimney and flue technology in the twelfth century made it possible to locate kitchens closer to the buildings where the food was eaten. reaching its greatest extent by the end of the thirteenth century. This minimized the danger of a kitchen fire spreading to the main structure and also kept the nasty smells. All activities engaged in by the early medieval aristocracy occurred in and around the longhouse. where the children of wealthy families were educated and occasionally housed. made of split tree trunks and woven battens. The development of the castle as both residence and fortification. it also meant that food prepared in the kitchen had to be carried through the open air to the longhouse to be consumed. that came from slaughtering animals to be cooked and the garbage heaps of kitchen waste. kitchens tended to be located away from the main building. In Wales and the Welsh March (the borderlands between England and Wales) castles dot the landscape every 6 to 10 miles. In early medieval Gaul. Because the main source of heat was usually a central hearth that vented through a hole in the thatched roof. These were. away from the chieftain and his clan. These were the center of noble life: a chieftain and his family lived in their longhouse. but the modern notion of “a room of one’s own” was not an issue in the Middle Ages. aristocrats throughout western Europe lived in large barn-like wooden buildings called longhouses. and agriculture. Indeed. subdividing the longhouse into small rooms was not practical. and were usually built on high land or even (especially by the Vikings) in the middle of ponds or lakes with causeway bridges built that could be broken up to secure the longhouses and other dwellings. with almost as many monasteries in between. As a result.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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surprising is how many structures were built for the comfort and care of so few people. similar to stockade fencing. the Merovingian elites were likely to have maintained a kind of hybrid dwelling that the historian Gregory of Tours referred to as a villa. These structures were usually defended by wooden barriers. took hundreds of years. made of wood with outbuildings that contained space for livestock as well as amenities for
. from sleeping and eating. everyone lived and worked in the same large open space. there is some evidence to suggest that early medieval aristocrats brought their most valuable animals into the longhouse to protect them in the long cold winters and in times of war. Life in and around the longhouse was focused on communal activities. and into which young men and women entered as professional religious. fighting. Because of the danger of fire in structures built of wood and thatch with open hearths at their center. however. to training. Unfortunately. A partition might be erected to give the chieftain and his wife some privacy. like longhouses. In the early Middle Ages.

benches. Examples such as the palace of Hir Al-Gharbi built in the late seventh century by caliph Hisham Ibn-Abdul Malik as a hunting lodge in the Homs region of Syria had amenities such as running water and interior gardens that Byzantine palaces also had. Until the development of the garderobe (to be discussed below). Tapestries or other kinds of woven hangings might have adorned the walls to keep out drafts as much as for their pleasing appearance. especially in the early Middle Ages in western and northern Europe. Imperial palaces in the Byzantine world were. often dangerously near the main water supply. built in the sixth century. They were sometimes surrounded by fortifications. and machicolations (openings in the upper walls through which defenders could pour nasty things on invaders). sometimes not. but that western elite structures would not match for centuries. and a bed only for the heads of the household. but the men were far more likely to use the corners of buildings as their privies. and the Blachernae palace just outside the city built by emperor Alexios Komnenos around 1080—were considered the exemplar for all opulent structures that followed for several hundred years. Chamber pots might be employed by the women in the household. mud. and fleas dropped on the floor by the inhabitants. Recent excavations in Lebanon of the Umayyad palace complexes at Anjar have unearthed a structure that might have looked at home in Europe four hundred years later: a large rectangular space enclosed by walls. Latrines were usually dug in the farthest corner of the fortified compound. The prominence of Constantinople throughout the medieval world meant that its palaces—especially the Great Palace of Constantinople. life in a medieval nobleman’s house must have been overpoweringly smelly. built in stone and lavishly decorated. opulent. defensive towers. backless chairs that folded and could be stored in a cupboard. as were those of the caliphs in Damascus and Baghdad and of more local Muslim leaders in other parts of the Middle East. The furnishings of early medieval houses—even the wealthiest—were also minimal: tables that could be broken down and stacked against a wall. indeed. straw-filled mattresses. so very few survive. existed in the west only in the context of churches. such structures. This was modeled on Byzantine examples and included a chapel (all that actually
.1 Sanitation facilities were minimal at best. with each wall containing a gate.98
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the noble family. Woven mats made of rushes and other grasses were laid on the floors. but those examples we do have suggest that they were built for comfort and durability rather than for aesthetic reasons. in large part to pick up debris. Probably the most notable secular building of the early Middle Ages in the west was the palace of Emperor Charlemagne in Aachen. These items were made of wood.2 The Umayyads were also responsible for building as many as five palaces in Jerusalem after their conquest in the late seventh century.3 Until the later eighth century.

the Rhine region of Germany. while far more expensive and difficult to use. rose again. both of the latter areas after they were conquered by Norman nobles. The incorporation of local stone—both recycled from Roman structures (Roman brick is often found in castle walls) and quarried anew—required significantly more manpower and skill than the building of wooden structures. Hungarian). The motte and its keep. Wales. The Normans who followed their duke. The development of castles and a castle culture in England. with large wooden towers called keeps or donjons erected on top. The transition from building in wood to building in stone began around the year 1000. were then surrounded by a wooden wall. castle building became possible only for the wealthiest members of medieval society. William the Conqueror. This motte-and-bailey castle became the standard model for noble and royal fortifications in Continental western Europe from the tenth century. Magyar (that is. the longhouses were replaced in much of western Europe by artificial mounds called mottes. which had dropped significantly after the end of Roman rule in the west. The Development of the Castle in the Medieval West With the coming of the Viking. it became increasingly necessary to erect fortifications to protect both landed estates and towns and villages. This was in part because deforestation made building massive walls of wood less viable. As a result. This was also more or less the case in the Byzantine and Muslim worlds. was far more secure. Fortifications were most typically made of wood—high stockade walls were common. eventually being built in stone and then becoming far more sophisticated in style as the centuries progressed. Eventually. called a bailey. and Ireland indeed clearly followed the Norman conquests of those lands and so can provide a useful example of the ways in which castles grew and developed. but in both a significant portion of the population lived in towns and cities that were surrounded by massive walls. much like those of the American West in the nineteenth century—and surrounded longhouses and other outbuildings as ways to deter invaders. along with the flatter land below the motte. so a greater portion of the population might have benefited from the protection stone walls could afford than most people in the west before towns began to be fortified. The building of towers. in part because medieval engineers recognized that stone. to England felt the need to demonstrate their dominance in a region where they were a tiny minority and the building of massive stone keeps (and large cathedral churches as well) was one
. and southern Italy and Sicily. Britain.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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survives of the original structure) that contained mosaic decoration styled on Byzantine models in Lombard Italy. and Muslim invaders into the western European world. Several areas of Europe experienced a building boom of castles in stone beginning in the mid-eleventh century: France.

so the building of major fortifications that represented both the pinnacle of contemporary engineering and the power of the ruling dynasty became a common concern. noble families built tall. By the middle of the twelfth century. particularly in London (the White Tower) and Dover Castle. His followers did the same in the regions they controlled by feudal tenure. Medieval central and northern Italy was far more urbanized than areas to the north. England (13th century). In Sicily and Southern Italy. and then took over the region as dukes.100
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way to spread the message. eventually. and. such as the area between Wales and England known as the Welsh March. the historical basis for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was such a feud among the nobility of Verona in the thirteenth century. Indeed. building styles varied considerably according to local custom. significantly altering both the landscape and the settlement patterns of the resident population. stone castles were plentiful throughout the British Isles. William himself built some of the first all-stone castles. In France and the Holy Roman Empire. narrow towers—sometimes several at a time—in the middle of town that acted as both a residence for the family and as a defensive structure to protect them in the numerous feuds that tended to develop among noble Italian families. kings. princes. They were even more foreign to the region than their counterparts in England. Cheshire. Instead. where the government was far less centralized. followed a similar pattern. the members of the Hauteville family who conquered originally as representatives of the pope. and castles were far less typical.
.
Beeston Castle.

style. Italy.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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Although there were numerous variations in castle building. Stone castles in medieval Europe tended to be located on high ground—often near a river or other body of water that could be diverted to form a moat. in size. sometimes octagonal. They were encircled by massive walls interspersed by towers that were sometimes square.
. and location. NY. and sometimes
View of San Gimignano. a number of generalities can be made. Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource. methods of construction.

The family apartments in the keep were usually found on the floors above the ground floor (what in America is called the second and third floors. dispute that the de-centering of female spaces in castle
. but in Europe is called the first and second stories). Inside the walls was the outer bailey. This was almost always the center of activity for the women of the household. as possible. often centrally located. by merchants as a place to sell wares. and dormitory for members of the household. which is where the word “dungeon” comes from. These were sometimes located in the southwest tower instead of the keep. and so on. and entrance to the castle was made over a bridge through this gate. This was not originally meant as a prison. but not be choked with smoke from the fireplace. The Great Hall was used as a dining room. contained the kitchens for the domestic center of the castle community. such as the barbican and great hall. The outer curtain wall contained a fortified gate called a barbican. rooms had to be large. entertainment center. Small subdivided rooms were rare until the thirteenth century because chimneys were not invented until the later twelfth century and were not in wide use until the thirteenth century. Thus. The lady of the castle might also lay claim to the sunniest part of the keep: a small room on a high floor that faced the southwest.102
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round. It housed the family. other archaeologists. then this was the only bailey and the great barbican gate led directly to the bailey and inner keep. The lord and lady of the castle might have their own bedroom. family spaces were usually large open rooms with hearths on opposite ends. but rather prisoners were kept temporarily in the basement storerooms of the keep before they came to trial. especially of castles in England and Wales. usually on an upper floor. but cleaner and airier. but the rest of the household lived far more communally. The keep was usually the largest structure inside the castle walls. This was an open area used by the soldiers of the garrison as a practice field. and ceremonial spaces of the castle. have revealed that the women’s quarters in High and late medieval castles were often deliberately placed as far away from the center of the formal. in order to stay warm. The French word for the keep is donjon. blacksmith’s forge. and also contained storerooms and holding cells in the basement. known as a solar. among them Roberta Gilchrist. If the castle was small. Although some archaeologists have suggested that this might have resulted in rendering the women who lived in the castle—of which there were few in most castle communities regardless—virtually invisible. Recent archaeological excavations. ground floor rooms were almost always used as public spaces and storage. by the lord of the castle as a place to hold judicial courts (which could be held outdoors in good weather or inside the main tower or barbican). public. with private domestic spaces on upper floors: it was not only safer. who wove and sewed in the room. In castles built before 1300. In the Middle Ages. The few women who worked as servants in the household had separate quarters. Other buildings dotted the landscape of the outer bailey: kitchens. workshops.

whose interest in the women housed there might not have been all that benevolent. Castles could become virtual towns in their own right. In addition. who often doubled as a secretary. Medieval noble families always had a chaplain in attendance.4 In addition to the usual domestic arrangements of bedrooms. in that the women of the household were not restricted from entering the public spaces when their duties required them to do so. and towns often grew in the shadow of the castle wall. the portcullis was lowered. And the more elaborate the castles became.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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architecture makes them invisible and suggests other possible reasons for the locating of women far into the interior of the castle environment. as well as a public entrance for the use of the rest of the family. This. including the use of outer and inner baileys. outer and inner keeps. On the other hand. and in the towers. the location of female spaces within the medieval castle was probably designed to keep women separated physically from men. but protected from the invasion of male residents of the castle. because the very act of building a stone castle tended to bring settlers into the region. in much the same way as the gynekaea (that is. encouraged
. since the troops and household servants would have been expected to engage in religious services as well as the family. there was probably a lot of movement in and out of the castle. and so on. and multiple gates. which meant that their space was vulnerable to invaders. the greater the population needed to sustain them. the family’s domestic spaces also included a chapel. This physical separation was not like that of the Islamic harem. especially ones built over a long period of time. In times of strife or war. although in very large and fancy castles chapels were often built as separate buildings from the keep. cutting everyone off from potential invaders. especially those that maintained large garrisons. and the drawbridge raised. in the Keep. In very large and elaborate castles. solar. however. the women’s rooms) operated in Byzantine elite houses (to be discussed later in this chapter). The chapel often had direct access to the women’s private spaces. Thus. the town residents were welcomed within the walls. Soldiers garrisoned in the castle were housed in the towers of the outer bailey’s wall. the family could hear mass every day without having to leave the castle to go to church. For example. women’s spaces sometimes were located in the tower farthest from the main gate. Multiple chapels are known to have existed in some castles. it might have been easier to protect women in the castle from invaders if their spaces were surrounded by public spaces dominated by males such as the garrisoned troops. concentric walls. Thus. They might also have a separate kitchen that catered to their needs and perhaps even a mess hall if the castle were particularly large. Servants’ lodgings were scattered throughout the castle: in outbuildings in the bailey. female work spaces. in turn. this simple wall-bailey-keep design could become quite complex.

sometimes even containing windows with glass panes—a real luxury before
Kidwelly Castle. Indeed. but because a relatively small number of people built more than one castle. for instance. According to the Web site “Castles of Wales.104
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the further growth of towns around a castle. the members of the upper nobility usually built castles in every location where they held significant amounts of property.
. Although the family’s quarters could be relatively spacious.5 The facilities in medieval castles could be primitive indeed: wealth and status did not necessarily mean that living arrangements were luxurious.” more than five hundred medieval castle sites have been identified in a land mass of around 8. the large number of castles that existed in the Middle Ages was not because of a large number of people building them. the Marshal earls of Pembroke.000 square miles—that is. including more than a dozen castles they either inherited or built themselves in an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. Between 1190 and 1245. controlled most of south and south-central Wales. Ironically. Only the wealthiest and most important nobles were usually permitted by the king to build castles. the heirs then set upon a frenzy of castle building and improvement that lasted another hundred years. When the earldom of Pembroke was divided among multiple heirs in 1245. Wales (13th century). through settlement from the surrounding countryside as well as emigration from farther away. an area smaller than the state of New Jersey.

and small basins sometimes built directly into the walls of a room that would hold water for washing the face and hands. In the Mediterranean. and Muslims. The idea of a wardrobe containing both a toilet and a clothes closet comes from the invention of the garderobe: medieval people sometimes kept their clothing in or nearby the garderobe because the smell deterred moths. Nevertheless. unlike Jews. which was then scraped off the body with a special tool. the latrines—called garderobes (from which we get the term wardrobe) throughout most of Europe—that were built into the main towers and the keep. and large sarcophagus-shaped storage boxes called wardrobes or presses that held everything from clothes to books and kitchen utensils could be all the furniture contained in a keep. especially those housing large populations. Indoor plumbing and easy access to hot water did not exist until well into the nineteenth century. Wells were dug inside the castle walls so that the inhabitants had fresh water for drinking and cooking. Bathing facilities were also limited to portable tubs.
. The moat at the best of times—when it comprised water from a stream or tidal river that could flush out the worst of the contamination by means of sluice gates and the rising and falling tides—was more or less an open sewer. and perhaps their children still in the home. The use of steam rooms and saunas occurred all over the medieval world—from Muslim Anatolia to pagan and Christian Scandinavia. but upholstered furniture was unheard-of until the fifteenth century. Garderobes were most frequently located in the towers of the outer bailey. Medieval Christian people in western Europe. making it much easier to keep both one’s person and one’s sink clean. and animals that fell into the moat likely drowned and then decomposed. housed usually in the kitchens where it was warmer. the tradition of cleaning the body with olive oil. Portable pillows might soften the surface for an elderly behind. In some castles.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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1400—they were usually very simply furnished: a bed for the lord and lady. but if the well was not deep enough. They were accessed through a long narrow passageway—which probably made the smell easier to manage—and often had two seats instead of just one. where the drains could be built directly over the moat. these basins actually had drains that emptied into the moat. did not bathe their entire bodies all that often. removable bedding for the rest of the family who had to bed down in the great hall. large trestle tables that could be broken down and pushed against the wall. the water could be fouled by contamination from the moat. or women’s quarters. Byzantine Christians. nursery. drained directly into the moat. The castle’s inhabitants flung their waste into the moat. could be difficult. The smell of the moat—not to mention the garderobes themselves—must have been close to unbearable when the castle was fully occupied. and draining it afterwards were labor intensive jobs. so sanitary facilities in castles. filling the tub. since heating water for a tub. folding wooden chairs and benches. they were not as filthy as modernday people might think.

stone structures was also a problem. because the heat could be used more efficiently: it is hard to heat a huge hall from a fireplace. Most residential structures throughout the medieval world had windows that were covered by woven screens or shutters. and other materials that would burn more cleanly than untreated. For the wealthy. Thus. the hanging of tapestries and the use of wood-framed partitions and screens helped to dissipate the worst of the rising damp experienced in a stone structure. but they were dangerously flammable and so not used in open hearths and braziers. Heating large. The lack of wood in those areas. made heating even more difficult. with roaring fires on both ends. but offered little protection from the elements (unless the shutters were completely closed) and did not permit much light to enter. The addition of air circulation in the fireplace also made the fire burn hotter and kept coals going longer. fireplaces were not well vented. and the development of new techniques for making clear window glass at the same time. were used: these held sea coal (soft coal that appeared just below the surface of the earth in some parts of Europe) or charcoal. Fireplaces also made it more sensible to partition large rooms into smaller spaces. small iron baskets. tar pools of raw petroleum were tapped to provide fuel for lamps but the climate in most Mediterranean areas did not require additional heating for much of the year. no matter how large the hearth might be. Until the invention of the chimney. Fireplaces with chimneys could be engineered so that the heat was thrown outward.106
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continued into the Middle Ages. though. In the Muslim Middle East. to keep the clothes worn against the body (called linen because of the fiber used to make them) clean. Instead. called braziers. Saplings could be soaked in oil for both light and heat. These kept out birds and other critters who might come through the window. The size and number of windows also affected the efficiency of medieval heating systems. changed the domestic spaces of the wealthy classes immeasurably. so the great hall. unprocessed wood. however. bath houses were built in Mediterranean regions and in Jewish quarters that were frequented by members of the community from all economic and social levels. and small rooms could not be heated by using a fireplace or hearth at all. The invention of the chimney in the late twelfth century. All medieval cultures made soap from the fat of animals and vegetables and tried. Chimneys—often built in much the same way as garderobe drains—pulled the smoke from the fire upward and away from the ceiling. In addition. drafty. interior spaces must have been lit with torches and rush lights nearly all
. Medieval aristocrats in the west were particular about their appearance and it was considered very poor form to come to the dining table with dirty faces or hands. making the area around it warmer. partially burned logs. was undoubtedly horridly smoky (there is evidence that many people suffered from respiratory ailments in the years before central heating). at least.

Glass made it possible to cut larger window openings—as long as it was safe to do so—so that more natural light entered the interior. As will be discussed in the next section. Members of the lesser nobility and of the knightly class did build spacious. and eventually water-closets—trickled down to the houses of the knightly.
. Wales (14th century). and merchant classes by the end of the Middle Ages. the vast majority of people living in medieval Europe were not to experience such luxuries for many years. rare in other structures until the fifteenth century because of the huge expense involved. when the weather would have encouraged the shuttering of the windows. These fortified manor houses could be quite large and elegant. gentry. the outer walls of the house often served as the main
Picton Castle. glass-paned windows. garderobes.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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the time. The conveniences and amenities developed for western European castles—fireplaces with chimneys. gracious homes for themselves. especially in winter. Window glass was used in the west first in churches in the early Middle Ages and then in royal residences by around the year 1100. but they differed from castles in that they did not house a substantial garrison. Rooms were instantly warmer than they had been with open windows because the glass protected inhabitants from outside temperatures and the vagaries of the weather. however. It was. but these were rarely fortified to the degree a castle was.

which meant that the owner could build a higher wall with a parapet that could be used by soldiers to protect the manor. and stucco) on the upper floors. but often the difference of degree in fortifications was significant. It was constructed of stone on the lower floors. This essentially turned a manor into something resembling a castle. This became far more typical of aristocratic housing. especially after 1400. Outbuildings were fewer and the number of nonfamily members housed in the manor was relatively small. when many castles were converted to more luxurious mansions. multiple fireplaces. but because of its location was more protected from determined and large bands of marauders than usually existed on a local level. and
Acton Burnell Fortified Manor. the gate does not include a barbican. and half-timber (wood.
.108
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fortifications. Shropshire. rubble. elegant staircases. and there are no towers aside from the crenellations on the manor house itself. The outer walls of the buildings in the compound were also in use as fortifications. Stokesay Manor is a good example of a later medieval fortified house. complete with large glass windows (sometimes known as oriel windows). The result was a manor house that was spacious and lightly defended. England (13th century). Occasionally the king would grant permission to crenellate a manor house. and the main gate opened directly into a courtyard where the manor house stood. mortar.

In Italy. and cramped quarters probably could not compare to the spacious palaces and other. The multiple towers rise over the town in a tight cluster. Although far less spacious than a rural or even urban castle of northern Europe. While it is clear that rulers lived in imposing and lavishly appointed palaces. so one impetus for building castles was missing until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Elite Houses in the Mediterranean World The dwellings of elites in the western Mediterranean regions were often very different from those of northern Europe. such as when Countess Matilda of Tuscany hid there with Pope Victor III in 1087. they can nonetheless provide a tiny window into medieval aristocratic life.7 Historians have much less information on the living arrangements of people living in the Byzantine Empire and the southern Mediterranean in the Middle Ages.6 The famous tower built on Tiber Island in Rome. Indeed. The Italian aristocrat built tall narrow defensive towers in these urban areas. Originally built in the late tenth century by the Pierleoni family. Italy. sometimes linking them on upper floors by using bridges. towers built in Trastevere and the Campo Marzio by Roman aristocratic families. can provide a closer view of what tower dwelling might have been like in the Middle Ages. which had toilets that could be flushed with water. more spacious. administration. It is clear that members of the ruling class built fortified structures to live in.110
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even water-closets. feudalism was less thoroughly incorporated into elite culture. but its tiny windows. In Christian Spain. the wealthy urban dwellers. the domestic spaces of aristocrats. Although most of these towers were pulled down by popular uprisings in the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. it was eventually sold to the Caetani family in 1294. replacing the earlier garderobes. and especially the poor majority are less easily reconstructed. some historians suggest that western castle building was
. who used it as one base for their fortress. There is evidence that it was used occasionally as a dwelling. right against the Fabricius Bridge. that in some ways resemble medieval western castles. the skyline of the Tuscan hill town of San Gimignano can provide the modern viewer with a feel for what it must have been like to live in such a city. from Rome to Lake Como in the north. Several important events took place there. elites were less concerned with fortifying their rural villas and more concerned about building defensive structures in the crowded cities that were experiencing significant growth in both population and wealth by the second quarter of the thirteenth century. southern France (what is now called the Côte d’Azur). single garderobe that emptied directly into the river. Although these structures are only a small percentage of the many that must have existed in the Middle Ages. and also domesticity. these towers served similar purposes as means of defense of assets. and the western Balkans. with walls and towers.

western European crusaders were diverted to conquer Constantinople. Such structures have long since disappeared under the pavements of modern-day cities. instead of Muslim Egypt. with an enclosed central courtyard. making their recovery virtually impossible. although the use of luxury fabrics such as silk and silk-wool blends was probably common for the wealthy class and the moveable accoutrements. must have been somewhat smaller than in the west. capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire. drinking vessels. had central courtyards but were less elaborate. Many of the houses used by elites in the early Byzantine period indeed seem to have been built earlier and might have been used as dwellings long after the peristyle house had stopped being built. however. Historians have tended to base their conclusions about such living arrangements on the assumption that housing styles today are very similar to those in the ancient world: most people live in multi-room structures built of brick and stucco. and of varying size depending on the location—urban or rural—and terrain. urban living retained its importance for the aristocracy. This style of house can be seen in Roman era remains and is a feature of elite houses from Pompeii to Syria. because the elite populations in the eastern Mediterranean tended to live in urban environments. Recent archaeological findings have verified many historians’ assumptions about Byzantine housing throughout the Mediterranean. those westerners who settled in Greece and the Aegean islands built castles there modeled on the ones they built at home. Rooms were partitioned in ways to make them more versatile. even for the wealthy. and so on. containing an elaborate dining room called a triclinium (this refers to the three couches that were built into the walls of the room). When. As in the early period. In the later Byzantine period.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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influenced significantly by the experiences of crusaders going to the Holy Land in 1096: the massive walls of the cities of Constantinople and Antioch and the fortifications of the Turkish amirs were certainly imitated by the Knights Hospitaller when they expanded Krak des Chevaliers in Syria (which had originally been built by the Turks) and by King Edward I when he built Caernarvon Castle in the 1280s. a central courtyard was an essential component
. although cities apparently contracted significantly in size. Native residential spaces. like peristyle houses. The main rooms that faced the street were used by the men in the family (the ancient Greek tradition of the andron—the man’s room—seems to have persisted). Furnishings in these homes tended to be quite simple. were probably of very high quality.8 Less wealthy early Byzantine families lived in smaller structures that. such as dishes. Early Byzantine houses (that is. in 1204. until about 700) for elites often took the form of a peristyle house: an extended house built around a central courtyard that was enclosed by a covered gallery called a peristyle. religious artifacts. These buildings are usually two stories high. with the kitchens and women’s spaces located in the back of the house and the upper floor.

The Europeans who conquered Constantinople in 1204 established feudalstyle lordships in Greece and the Aegean islands that persisted for a century and even two centuries afterwards. These spacious settings for a wealthy lifestyle were probably little different from their Roman predecessors. They built western-style castles and usually avoided living in cities.11 One source of significant debate is whether Byzantine women were confined in women’s quarters in the ways that ancient Greek and medieval
. This was comprised of a large and spacious house that sprawled over the landscape in order to benefit from both sun and shade. Although most of the evidence is anecdotal. but second floors might also have added more space for the wealthy elites. Less extravagant houses of the wealthy classes just below the highest level might not have had such amenities. and tables were likely to resemble those in western European keeps: wooden tops and trestle legs that could be folded and stored for convenience. it would seem that the wealthiest homes enjoyed many luxuries.112
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to houses from all social levels. despite changes in agricultural production over the early Byzantine centuries. The conquest and settlement of western European crusaders into the Mediterranean world altered not only the political and social structures of the Byzantine Empire in particular. and beds with elaborate draperies. with outbuildings for the maintenance of agricultural labor and the storage of supplies and produce. the Roman latifundium remained as a common system for the exploitation of peasant labor and the production of cash crops such as grapes for wine and olives. or triclinium. from frescoed and decorated walls to cushioned furniture. Kitchens and sanitary facilities are hard to identify in such archaeological remains. although the absence of the so-called Roman Peace probably meant that they were fortified with at least a wall around the villa and outbuildings to protect both the inhabitants and the profits of the villa. but it is likely that much of that kind of activity occurred in the courtyard. which had retained its Late Antique character for a long period of time. in the medieval Balkans (the region between Italy and Greece) and the kingdom of Hungary. The old Roman-era villa style of home seems to have persisted. Bedding might have been laid on the permanent benches built into the walls of the dining room. Indeed. where the heat from cooking fires would dissipate without overheating the domestic apartments. Building materials might have actually been culled from ruins of earlier structures. Their building styles therefore influenced domestic architecture in the countryside.9 Members of the aristocracy who lived in the countryside throughout the Byzantine and Muslim empires seem to have continued this conservative approach to domestic spaces.10 The interiors of the houses of wealthy Byzantine elites ranged widely from extreme luxury to surprising simplicity. but also its architecture. glass and metal utensils.

. The entire structure might be surrounded by a wall. surrounded by flimsy walls. fortifications such as the massive stone forts of Syria and the mud and clay brick castles of Iraq and Iran. There is no firm conclusion about this issue. of necessity housed many people.13 Although Muslim leaders built fortresses and castles. Family members lived in the upper stories of the urban home. Muslim rulers built palace-castles as retreats in the Jordan desert. Kitchens were often attached to the back end of the house. with small enclosed courtyards and gardens. since it was easier to build them that way and it maximized the space inside the house. with the ground floor and basement levels devoted to storage and commercial operations.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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Muslim women were claimed to have been. Servants and apprentices slept in the attics and shop floors. In addition. all focused on central interior courtyards. tiled and painted walls. or in some cases separated entirely from the house itself. Houses were multi-story. Decoration included beautifully lettered Quranic inscriptions written in Arabic calligraphic script and other ornamental designs. in order to protect it from fire: a constant problem in medieval cities. Muslim elites enjoyed handmade carpets on the floors. were spacious and elegant but could not compete with the elaborate halls of the aristocrat’s castle. which tended to be somewhat Spartan in their furnishings. as a shop or office. Staircases were often attached to the exterior of the houses. so walls surrounded the rear portions of the house and garden in order to provide some measure of privacy for the family. that suggest there was no separation between men and women. They were usually made of stone and stucco. Unlike Byzantine homes. Domestic Arrangements in Cities in the Medieval West The living situations of even wealthy people living in the small and cramped urban centers of medieval Europe were very different from those of the landed aristocracy. Members of the urban wealthy elite—the guild masters. built of stone and stucco in the southern portion of the continent and usually of half-timber—a combination of exposed wood beams and stuccoed rubble—in the north. with plain fronts and opulent interiors. because the literary statements about such confinement of especially elite women is not reinforced by the archaeological record and other kinds of sources.12 The homes of wealthy Muslims resembled those of elite Byzantine Christians. but it is far more likely that the ground floor of the home was used for commercial purposes. cushioned furniture. from military leaders and soldiers to common people who supplied the troops. and so on. and professionals such as lawyers and notaries—lived in houses that. wealthy merchants. such as wills. which were also residential in purpose. these were more for defense and less like western castles. by the standards of the urban landscape. Still.

The interiors of these houses were luxurious indeed. a great deal of the house could be devoted to economic interests. on the other hand. Elites would usually have a latrine or outhouse in the back garden. with the whitewashed walls hidden behind tapestries that began to be mass-produced in the thirteenth century. fireplaces with elaborate mantels. who were only partially protected by the overhang (this is the origin of the tradition of ensuring that women walked on the inside of the sidewalk. painted ceilings. These extensions were then braced from below by buttressing made of stone and wood. but servants would have to make do with the public latrines found at the end of city streets. on the opposite end of the city.114
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The wealthiest members of the urban elite devoted their disposable wealth to the decoration of their homes rather than to creating huge palatial structures. but also endangered people walking on the sidewalks. where the raw sewage flowed directly from the latrine into the teeming street. where printing. glass-paned windows. One home design that became quite popular. incorporated the air space available at the levels above the street in order to make the living spaces for wealthy families more spacious. Confined to slums in the worst parts of town—usually downriver
. and tanners. especially in northern Europe and the British Isles. but even the most successful butcher in London could not move his business away from Cheapside because his business would collapse. all lived along Cheapside. Unfortunately. sanitary facilities in medieval cities were not comparable to those found in castles. women’s clothing did not get splashed!). The living arrangements of the poor in medieval cities were grim indeed. This meant that some parts of the city were truly unhealthy to live in. The overhangs often blocked almost all the sunlight getting to the streets. fishmongers. Even the upper floors of the house could be turned over to production and manufacture if the business required large machinery (such as a printing or bookbinding shop) or employed a large number of apprentices and journeymen. The second and third floors of the houses (called the first and second stories in Europe) were extended outward beyond the foundation’s footprint so that they overhung the street. this design made the streets of medieval cities even darker and more grim. Businesses tended to be clustered in particular parts of the city. with men walking on the outside. and the tendency to hurl the contents of chamber pots and rubbish bins from the upper story windows into the open sewer running down the middle of the street not only contributed to what must have been a horrible stench. such as in medieval London. and notarial services were clustered along Fleet Street and Chancery Lane on the western end of the city. Although an effective method for gaining greater interior space. which was also the center of lawyer training and support for the law courts. book production. nearer the curb: that way. and expensive furniture. Butchers. Since people tended to live and work in the same space.

sanitation. with disease and starvation far more common than health and success. and living patterns had been more or less fixed from the Roman period. but they had a distinct advantage over their northern European peers: the climate. or Byzantine Christian—the Mediterranean Sea and the long history of cities around it determined the shape and the living arrangements in medieval urban areas. these parts of the medieval city were truly unspeakable. Cities around the Mediterranean were much more densely populated than those in northern Europe. and prostitutes massing in the streets. for example. since a cluttered house meant a stuffy house. The poor in Mediterranean cities were just as badly off as those in the north. Sometimes the best thing to happen to a city slum was a massive fire. and a cool place to live and sleep in the heat of a Mediterranean summer. and roofs made of terra cotta tiles. thieves. Mediterranean cities had been around a great deal longer than those in northern Europe. privacy. gave Mediterranean cities a distinctive look. As a result. which were renewed every decade to little effect. so rubble. with beggars. but people did not generally freeze to death in the winter. Attempts to clean up such city quarters were rare. banned the dumping of sewage and garbage into the Thames. Muslim. and notoriously unsuccessful. both Muslim and Byzantine cultures retained Roman practices of distributing grain and oil to the poorest inhabitants as acts of charity. which often resulted in fires that decimated entire quarters of northern cities. The typical house for the wealthiest members of the urban elite was undoubtedly more spacious than that of the working classes. The political leaders of London. as well. This was
. The lifespan of the urban poor was woefully short. but they were completely unable to enforce these bans. which destroyed everything and probably deodorized the quarter to some extent. domestic structures were (and continue to be) remarkably similar to those that had existed for millennia. and stucco walls. was less an issue in the south. or housing. but the greatest difference between them was probably the fact that the wealthy were able to have large enclosed courtyards in their compounds that provided fresh air. stone. Urban Living in the Mediterranean World No matter the cultural environment—Roman Christian.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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from the elites’ quarters so that even the water was fouled from the rubbish and sewage thrown into the river upstream—with inadequate light. Wood was rarely used in house construction in areas where forests simply did not exist. with populations many times larger. and the need to heat ramshackle wooden houses. Furnishings even among the wealthy urban classes were likely to have been quite simple and minimalist. There were slums galore in Mediterranean cities. In addition.

returning only to sleep. Caravansaries were like inns in that they provided places to eat and sleep for the itinerant Bedouin. Furnishings were very sparse. In the east. it is likely that the houses of the middle classes revealed in eastern Mediterranean excavations were not all that different from those in the western Mediterranean or the Muslim Middle East. they could be come semi-permanent or even permanent settlements in Muslim cities. This was a section of the city devoted to serving the caravans of Bedouins who engaged in long-distance trade from North Africa to India and even China along the socalled Silk Road through central Asia. It is almost impossible to reconstruct the domestic lives of the poor: their meager dwellings have long since been confined to oblivion. but also because Renaissance and Baroque structures that are highly valued utilize the same space as the medieval cities. Muslim and Byzantine sources describe urban environments in which men remain outside their homes for virtually the entire day and evening. so any cooking by the family might have been done on open fires in the interior courtyard. They also formed temporary market centers for the selling of the goods the Bedouin transported. into the medieval era. Since charcoal and wood for cooking fires was likely to have been somewhat scarce and expensive. Certainly. and they seem to have frequented shops selling prepared food and drink—just as the typical Mediterranean male does to this very day. Recent excavations in the former Byzantine Empire has revealed more of the urban landscape in the Middle Ages. the preparation of food was often a commercial venture. the most common houses were small. One thing probably missing from many urban houses in the Mediterranean was a kitchen. houses sometimes had second floors that were built out over the street. In medieval Damascus. much the same as urban dwellings in the west. with a few rooms grouped around a central corridor. Nevertheless. where Bedouin could live in an environment that approximated that of living in their traditional desert communities. but meant that the streets resembled dark tunnels. it is likely that this kind of system prevailed in much of the Mediterranean world.
. as it was in western Europe. Uncovering the medieval past in the western Mediterranean region has been somewhat more difficult.116
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institutionalized in the government. The poor throughout the Mediterranean world could not avoid the squalor evident in all medieval cities. Kitchens seem to have been absent. From the Roman period. with restaurants and food counters on every street corner offering cooked food for a reasonable price. in part because of a lack of interest in the medieval remains that lie atop Roman ruins. An element of medieval Muslim cities that did not appear in either Byzantine or western European ones was the caravansary. Finally. rather than overseen by the church. at least for the working poor. This provided more spacious interiors for the people (usually women) dwelling in the upper floors.

Their labor. continued to be high. and goldsmiths’ districts were occupied by Jewish families. so they tended to live in small enclaves within larger Christian districts. living in these urban environments was probably less delightful than for men. disease. Women from poor families could not afford to worry about perceptions of respectability: they had to work to sustain their families. Certainly. which provided both the privacy required from the culture and the fresh air people craved. even to the stifling upper floors.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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Roman traditions of personal hygiene persisted in the medieval Mediterranean. and even saunas. In some areas. but unlike men they did not have the advantages of bathhouses and cafes to provide a much needed respite from the hot sun. Women from less wealthy families were not so lucky. jewelers’. so visible in early modern Rome and Venice. As a result. Jews did tend to cluster in certain areas of urban spaces for the simple reason that they were limited in the kinds of work they could engage in. were described as teeming slums of filth. and worked as domestic servants. women were far more likely to be confined to their houses. Byzantine women below the level of the elite also could not afford to maintain the respectable separation from both males and public spaces that the religious literature tended to demand. prepared and sold food. For some female family members. in the preparation and selling of food and in the making of textiles. latrines. such as Christian Spain and parts
. so moneylenders’. Indeed. easily washable cotton and linen clothing (unlike the heavy woolen clothing typical in the west) that western religious leaders accused them of decadence and of going native. and crime. to which Christians fled in the years following the Muslim recovery of Jerusalem. was essential for family survival just as it was in other medieval cultures. These women occupied the public spaces just as consistently as did men. than were men. although cities such as Acre. the confinement of women in Muslim culture was very important to the maintenance of family continuity. Jewish Quarters in Medieval Cities The image of the Jewish ghetto. so they presided over shops. Women from wealthy families certainly benefited from the availability of their open courtyards. Judaic practice required Jews to live within walking distance of a synagogue. at least for men. Although the image of the royal harem relates only to the highest levels of the elite. and so the availability of public baths. the sewage systems in many Mediterranean cities were considered superior to those in northern Europe. the crusaders from western Europe who settled in the eastern Mediterranean apparently became so accustomed to bathing frequently and to wearing clean. In addition. was not really the case in medieval Europe. Muslim and (according to many historians) Byzantine culture required a strict separation of women and men and discouraged so-called respectable women from appearing in public.

because communal ovens and cauldrons for cooking were sometimes provided in a central location. where Jewish families were crammed into filthy quarters surrounded by high walls and a locked gate. Unlike bathhouses for the Christian community. perhaps as a protective measure in an era when attacks on Jewish homes by Christian mobs included setting them on fire with all the inhabitants being barricaded inside. In western European cities. these were not fronts for prostitution. royal and city law sometimes restricted Jews to certain sections of the city. The furnishings in Jewish households were likely to have been more or less identical to Christian households of the same social classes. considering how awful they must have been). but the image of the squalid ghetto. Jewish homes were thus often interspersed among Christian homes in many cities in Europe. even paranoia. Jews also were not permitted to use Christian public latrines (which might not have been such a hardship. so sanitary facilities in homes might have been more elaborate. The kitchen might have been somewhat more elaborate. but in fact places connected to religious observance. on the part of the Christian leaders in a city. from sexual relations to menstruation—and so bathhouses with separate facilities for men and women were nearby Jewish districts or areas where Jewish families clustered. This sometimes was a source of anxiety. belongs more properly to the era of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. since kosher laws required two sets of dishes and different cooking pots for preparing meat and dairy-based foods.118
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of Germany and the eastern Holy Roman Empire. was required after all kinds of activities. with the only differences in the houses being dictated by Judaic traditions. especially in wealthier homes. Wealthy Jews in the later
. when Christian antiSemitism expanded. much as they were in Christian quarters. with a gate that locked.14 Without any physical separation between them. who sometimes suspected Jews of poisoning wells used by Christians (there were wells and fountains prominently displayed in the better parts of the city in order to ensure reasonably clean drinking and cooking water for the inhabitants). The mass murder of the Jews of Mainz and Cologne by crusaders on their way to Constantinople might have been prevented if Jews had been living in an enclosed quarter of the city. There is some evidence that wealthy Jews tried to build houses of stone. In less wealthy homes the kitchen facilities might have been much simpler. Although occasionally restricted in the kinds of luxury goods they could own— most medieval cities had sumptuary laws that were designed to identify different social groups on the basis of the clothing they could wear and even the number of windows their houses could have—it is doubtful that anyone entering a Jewish home would see a significant difference in its layout and décor from a similar Christian home. Jewish homes were not very different from Christian homes. or mikvah. Jews also bathed more frequently—the ritual bath. their home were multistory and with the same kind of overhanging second and third floor.

The ghetto of Rome. These were blessed by rabbis every year before Passover. for example. upon which was written. The early modern ghettos in eastern Europe. began to be pushed into specific quarters of the city. Jewish homes were also more or less identical to those of their Christian and Muslim neighbors. This was a small scroll. for example. the homes of poor Jews were probably just as cramped and squalid throughout Europe as were the homes of the Christian urban poor. from al-Andalus to the Holy Land and Byzantine Anatolia. and they identified a Jewish home from a Christian one. Such domestic luxuries were popular in areas where Jewish trade predominated. Nevertheless. One difference would have been that every Jewish home had a mezuzah hanging on the door frame of the front door. In addition. but these dwellings were also probably occupied by more than one family at a time. such as the Mediterranean cities and the flourishing urban centers of Flanders and the Netherlands. This could have been a significant disadvantage during time when Christian hostility toward Jews erupted in violence.000 in an area of only a few kilometers in size.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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Middle Ages might have displayed such luxuries as carpets. were also very crowded. they were not restricted in this way. Jews still living in western European cities. at the very end of the Middle Ages. Jewish homes intermingled with those of everyone else. Agriculture was the largest portion of the
. the dominant Jewish domestic unit would be in an urban environment and Jewish landowners usually hired stewards to maintain and run their rural properties. and paneled walls somewhat earlier than Christian elites’ homes. the quality of their living spaces deteriorated. such as Rome. When. possibly because of their own preference. Jews were geographically restricted in Constantinople. where Jews were somewhat less restricted. At the same time. in other parts of the medieval world. In central Europe. whereas Jews in most of western Europe were not allowed to own land. In the Byzantine and Muslim empires. and the Rhineland from which Jews were expelled beginning in the later thirteenth century—where nuclear families were more the norm. Jews are recorded as owning vineyards and olive groves. but in the rest of the Mediterranean. in Hebrew. their houses might have been larger and more spacious. by 1600 had a population estimated to be as high as 10. such as Muslim Spain. France. sometimes encased in a metal or wooden housing. upholstered furniture. but the tradition of the mezuzah remained nonetheless. This is in direct contrast to houses in older areas of Jewish settlement—areas such as England. a prayer for the prosperity of the household. draperies. Domestic Arrangements of the Rural Peasant The rural village was the principle living environment for the vast majority of medieval people. such as those that existed in Prague and Warsaw.

such as those who left inventories of their household goods in the later Middle Ages. Fireplaces with chimneys might replace the open hearth. Some had two or three rooms.
. pasture. Unlike the rise of cities in the High Middle Ages or the development of feudalism and its transformation of the aristocracy and knightly class. mud. Wealthier peasants. They were limited in size. The back garden was also used for keeping chickens. Kitchen facilities were primitive: an open hearth with perhaps a venting hole in the thatched roof. The same can be said for peasant dwellings. and probably as a latrine.120
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medieval economy. with partitions for the largest room. most peasants lived in villages clustered around arable fields. The poorest houses were small. were generally under the authority of lords (who could be a lay person or the leader of a monastic house) who actually controlled the land on which the peasants lived and worked. although they were still quite small by modern standards. peasant houses resembled those of wealthier country folk. but probably retained the interior courtyard of more spacious homes since that space was used for both cooking and sleeping. stucco. Peasant houses in the west were usually made of timber. whether free or unfree. but the houses of the rural poor were likely made of brick. Indeed. perhaps only one room. and tile much like those of the wealthy. rubble. lived in more spacious houses. These wealthier houses could be made of stone. but on a much smaller scale. and the villagers who lived there were either tied to the land as serfs or were rentiers. peasant culture was much slower to change. sometimes with a sleeping loft accessed by a ladder (references to people sleeping “in the roof” appear in coroner’s inquests because they sometimes fell out of the rafters while asleep and died). located in the village in an area devoted to baking and beer brewing. In western Europe. and straw—a collection of building materials known as wattle and daub—and were roofed with thatch. These cottages usually had a small plot of land attached where the family grew vegetables for the cooking pot. some have survived for centuries. and an iron support for a cooking pot. rubble and mortar. Thus. Ovens for baking were usually communal. when life changed very dramatically. who paid rents for their property in the form of sharecropping. In the Mediterranean world. Peasants. and waste—a system known as a manor—in which they worked in exchange for land to grow their own food and a dwelling. called in such inventories the hall. the lives of peasants did not change significantly from the late Roman period to the Industrial Revolution. being converted into quaint cottages for summer tourists. since the arable land was entirely taken up with grain production. and other more durable materials. making it possible to have a room dedicated to sleeping. the village and its buildings (including the church) were the property of the lord of the manor. and agricultural labor the largest element of the labor force. Indeed. The opulence of the wealthiest was obviously not a part of peasant life.

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The Mediterranean climate was less suitable for growing grain than areas farther north. Peasant communities grew other food. In the fourteenth century. Even the most elite domestic spaces were designed. Women’s quarters hummed with activity. communal living. but the centuries-old production of olives and grapes made peasant communities successful as long as they worked together. culture. especially since they often brought the smaller animals. and social class. and green vegetables for their subsistence. The wealthier classes always built their homes— whether villa. and raised livestock. the poet William Langland. Nevertheless. there might be a bed for the husband and wife. so this vision of the typical peasant house does not necessarily represent the lifestyles of the wealthier members of the peasantry. more for work than for leisure. especially pigs and goats. who undoubtedly lived in dwellings that were more like those of the gentry than of their poorer neighbors. If the family was reasonably well off. Moreover. heavy furniture would have been difficult to move. Thus the peasant communities ringing the Mediterranean. since they probably had even less comfortable and less safe places to sleep. such as chickens and goats. however. There were many economic levels within the general rubric of peasant in the Middle Ages. in his work The Vision of Piers the Plowman. Areas near the coast also were engaged in fishing. simply because the dwelling spaces had to be versatile and large. like those of the north.15 Most historians would be hard put to contradict him. Conclusion The domestic spaces of medieval families varied significantly according to geography. although wheat and other grains were grown even on the most marginal land. especially in the eastern Mediterranean. either. Interior furnishings tended to be spare and simple. Indeed. Furniture in the peasant home was also minimal.
. while the exterior spaces were full of men engaged in their pursuits. depicted peasant life as beset by hardship and deprivation. maintained groves of fruit trees. tower. such as root vegetables. This depiction does not represent the dwelling places of poorer peasants. into the house in the cold winters to protect them. flexibility would have been more important in peasant houses than having them stuffed with furniture. or castle—from the most durable materials available. to some extent. Children bedded down on straw-stuffed mattresses that were stored under the bed during the day. survived through communal labor and. the depiction of peasant life found in Piers the Plowman has as much relevance for the Muslim or Byzantine peasant as it does for the English plowman living in the late fourteenth century. A table and benches and a storage press might be all that the family was able to afford. Grain probably had to be imported into many communities. rice. even among the elite. certain general conclusions are possible.

domestic and work spaces were literally combined.no/lebanon/900/910/919/anjar1/emergence. http://www. see “Anjar. See Simon Ellis. Ken Dark (Oxford: Oxbow Books. For more information on Roman aristocratic towers and villas from the Middle Ages. 9. 2000). but this probably encouraged more communal activities. 43–61 for an analysis of this issue. http://almashriq.com/home.122
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Among the urban classes of the medieval world. Peasant dwellings were small. 3. See The Castles of Wales. 1994). living areas the upper floors. The typical peasant dwelling. The same could be said for the stucco farmhouse of the Mediterranean peasant. ed.” Peasant communities benefited from being in the open air. see Ross Samson. New Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press. Power and Imagination: City-states in Renaissance Italy. brutish. “Medieval Bodies in the Material World: Gender. For more information on these excavations. 8. with its wattle-and-daub walls and thatched roof. often made of non-permanent building material. “Early Byzantine Housing” in Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire. Stigma and the Body” in Framing Medieval Bodies. Families were undoubtedly cramped. For the wealthy.
Notes
1. and short. and the domestic arrangements of all urban classes had to place a premium on its efficient use. in the form of upholstered furniture and comfortable beds. this did not prevent a certain level of luxury from existing.huji.ac. to use a famous phrase. see Richard Krautheimer. See Robert Gilchrist. 1988). Shops occupied the ground floor.il/ee23. Urban areas were always cramped for space. This is discussed by Lefteris Sigalos in “Middle and Late Byzantine Houses in Greece (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries)” in Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of
. Reprint Edition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. “The Merovingian Nobleman’s Home: Castle or Villa?” Journal of Medieval History 13 (1987): 287–315. but that does not mean they lived in luxurious surroundings. Sarah Kay and Miri Rubin (Manchester: Manchester University Press. “nasty. Rome: Profile of a City. 6.htm. 7. especially 37–42 for a discussion of the peristyle house. 4. For an extended discussion of Merovingian nobles’ dwellings. ed.hiof. 5.castlewales. The excavations of these palace structures can be seen at “The Umayyad Palaces. 2. For more information on aristocratic tower-building in the High and later Middle Ages.html for many interesting facts about and excellent photographs of castles in Wales and the borderlands between England and Wales (known as the Marches).” http://jeru.html and its following pages. could be seen in western Europe from the Roman period to the eighteenth century. 2004).” at Al Mashriq—The Levant. especially chapters 1–3. see Lauro Martines. For the poor. life in medieval cities must have been. 312–1308.

Piers Plowman (Norton Critical Edition). New Edition (New York: W.
. 2004).” http://www. 1958 [1898]).us/ schwww/sch618/Architecture/Architecture. Shepherd. 12. 62–72. A. one which includes both a translation from the original Middle English and selections from the original text.sfusd.html. “The Contents of the Byzantine House from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Century. 10. ed.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 205–214.The Physical Environment of the Medieval Family
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Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire. 14. Several Web sites show examples of the décor of medieval Muslim houses: “Old Damascus.” 65–70. Norton and Company.ca. 53–63.oldamascus. 11. “Middle and Late Byzantine Houses.k12.” http://www. Elizabeth Ann Robertson and Stephen H. Reprint Edition (New York: Meridian Books. W. ed. Ken Dark (Oxford: Oxbow Books. trans. Virtually the only discussion of the interiors of Byzantine houses in English is found in Nicolas Oikonomides.htm and “Horace Mann’s Architecture in Medieval Islamic Empires. Sigalos. Kazhdan in “Women at Home” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 1–17. 1996). is William Langland. A good edition. E. Talbot Donaldson. The classic discussion of the development of the ghetto is that of Israel Abrahams in Jewish Life in the Middle Ages. 15.com/home. 13. This debate is outlined efficiently by Alexander P.

.

Betrothals
. how these relationships influenced the experience of being fathers and mothers.7
Grooms and Brides. the most common family arrangement included both husbands and wives. This chapter focuses on the formation of marriage and the kinds of relationships that developed between husbands and wives. In some cases. but in other societies—especially Christian Europe—they were far less easy to break up. marriages in some medieval societies—especially Muslim culture and Jews living in Muslim-dominated regions—were fairly easily dissolved. Husbands and Wives. dated. although one of the spouses might not be the parent of the children in the family. the wedding did not necessarily take place immediately afterwards. Brides and Grooms Once a marriage had been arranged by the interested parties. the goal of marriage was supposed to be the production of children. and how changes in family structure through death and divorce also altered these relationships. In all cases. and emotional reasons were often more important than the ideal as stated by the main religions of the day. As mentioned in section 1. the couple did not even meet until shortly before the ceremony and. and decided to marry has no parallel in medieval realities: marriages were almost always arranged by the parents of the prospective couple or by the future husband and the parents or guardian of his desired bride. The modern Western notion of a love match arranged by a couple who has met. although economic. social. sometimes proxies were used to perform the ceremony. Fathers and Mothers
Throughout the medieval world. in the case of royal marriages.

such settlements were often embedded in deeds that established the transfer of property to a daughter as part of her maritagium or dowry. The familiarity of potential spouses could backfire if they took a dislike to each other as children. In the Byzantine Empire. they could be made out of almost any material—gold. Marriages of aristocrats contained many
. or both. that witnesses were present. In other parts. silver. either in writing or in oral form. many of the traditions involved in modern western marriage ceremonies contain rituals invented in the Middle Ages to guarantee that the couple’s consent was not coerced. These were most often made of gold or silver. the dowry contracts were closer to the Byzantine system than they were to those in northern Europe. this was not considered as important. and Jewish cultures with differences appropriate to each. Such ceremonies also existed in Muslim. betrothals in infancy were not uncommon among the wealthiest members of medieval society. Also. Muslim contracts could include stipulations made by the bride or her family that prohibited the groom from taking a second wife. In the Christian west. especially if they were children. marriage contracts were required and had to include specific stipulations about the material settlement—both land and moveable wealth especially among the elites—that both parties were willing to make on the potential bride and groom.126
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could be arranged long before the couple were old enough to marry. but also the rights of the wife to expect her husband not to abandon her. Byzantine. Even though the legal age of marriage was around 13 for females and 16 for males in the two Christian cultures and even younger in Jewish and Muslim cultures. but in most cases. a betrothed couple. although betrothal rings were apparently considered essential. Jewish marriage contracts stipulated not only the material exchanges that would occur. In all the medieval cultures the process of marriage from betrothal to wedding could be nullified if the couple was completely unsuited to each other. and that there were no other impediments to the marriage—such as another spouse lurking in the wings. One essential element that existed in all four medieval cultures in the process from betrothal to wedding was the marriage contract. either at the time of betrothal or during the wedding ceremony. the betrothed couple had some acquaintance with each other before they had to endure the wedding night. iron. were then housed together. Indeed.1 In some parts of the medieval world. the consent of both parties had to be announced formally. but the intention was the same: to establish a public record of the transaction that made a marriage legal in the eyes of civil society. This contract could become quite elaborate. but in the Byzantine betrothal and marriage ceremonies. even glass—so the cost of these rings was not necessarily too high for poorer couples to afford. Another element that was universal to all four medieval cultures was the exchange of rings. even if consent was the only stipulation required by the church. bronze. In Italy.

Although the potential groom was usually older—sometimes significantly so—than his intended bride. the groom’s promise to endow the bride. rings. Orthodox wedding ceremonies include these elements. both in paintings and illuminations depicting marriage ceremonies and in the depiction of couples wearing crowns on the actual betrothal and wedding rings. The Jewish marriage ceremony of the Middle Ages was not all that different from that of today. the use of a belt to tie the right hands of the couple together during part of the ceremony.Grooms and Brides.4 Jewish wedding ceremonies were different from those of their Christian neighbors in that marriage was not considered a sacrament but was. and the exchange of rings. In the west. Obviously. there was no real stigma attached to marrying a woman who was (slightly) older. but the evolution of the ceremony. the preferred method would include all these elements. including the use of a huppa. however. They could be accused of marrying for money. Jewish brides and grooms tended to be very young: girls being betrothed at 9 years of age and married at 12 was not an uncommon occurrence and boys could be married as early as 14.3 Byzantine culture differed in its wedding rituals from those of the Christian west but both ceremonies have persisted to the present day in Catholic and Orthodox ceremonies. but the medieval church required only the consent of both parties for the marriage to be valid. Fathers and Mothers
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more rituals and arrangements than those of peasants for the simple reason that the wealthiest members of medieval society had more property to arrange. Husbands and Wives. and in the middle of a village market without witnesses. These elements appear in Byzantine iconography. if they married women significantly older than they. Their marriages were usually arranged and they might not have known each other well before the ceremony took place. a civil obligation. When Maud Braose married her step-grandmother’s son. by the side of the road. The ceremony was ideally performed by a priest and included all the elements of the modern western wedding ceremony: the pledges made by both the bride and the groom. or a priest in attendance. Such marriages could prompt some nasty practical jokes in a custom known in France as the charivari. in particular if the marriage was arranged between unrelated people. especially if the production of children was unlikely.2 Men could be subject to ridicule. Peasant marriages were far more casual: church records from medieval England describe weddings that occur in haystacks. Roger de Mortimer. or
. the marriage was performed usually in a public place—often outdoors—in order to guarantee the largest number of witnesses. both invited guests and passersby. but also includes the suspension of crowns over the heads of the bride and groom. the fact that she was some years older than he was irrelevant to the far larger importance of the conjoining of her significant inheritance to his own. rather. Maud’s more advanced age was also not a bar to her longevity: she outlived Roger by a decade.

held up by four attendants so that the wedding couple could stand underneath it. which barred marriage between people closely related by blood. if both bride and groom were under age. who was probably around 12 years old at the time. but might symbolize the tribulations of marriage and the ephemeral nature of material goods in comparison to the devotion the married couple must experience for each other. the wealthy widow Khadijah. married only one virgin. seems to have occurred gradually. Unlike medieval Christian societies. This was often a strategy to keep property within the family confines and might have been common among Muslim families.128
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wedding tent. In addition. usually well before the potential bride reached puberty. Girls could be married as early as the age of 10. All Muslim regions engaged in shared ceremonies and rituals. Wealthy widows were popular marriage partners: Muhammad. the groom or his parents gave the bride and her parents a payment called a bride price. Betrothals among Muslim families occurred when girls were very young. especially those on the father’s side. Once the betrothal contract had been arranged and approved.
. The huppa was originally the prayer shawl of the groom. and the breaking of a glass under the groom’s foot. but there could be variations depending upon both local culture and socio-economic level. For Jews. although the significance of the symbols was less overtly religious. Aisha. actually proposed to him. the crowns mimicked the wedding of Esther and Ahasueras. or by the girl’s parents and her intended husband. his first wife. The ritual of the breaking of the glass (after which the witnesses to the wedding congratulate the couple with cries of “Mazel tov!”) has a murkier history. Marriages were arranged by parents. Since polygamy was permitted. Islamic legal marriage was in theory a simple act of claiming mutual consent in public. like Christian and Jewish laws of marriage. The betrothal contract could be a complicated document. both Islam and Judaism permitted marriage between first cousins. although he had 11 wives. king of Persia. the age range between brides and grooms— and between multiple wives—could be quite extreme. The tradition of rings and crowns that existed in Christian wedding ceremonies existed as well in Jewish ceremonies. the wedding could take place. Although. since the dowry the bride brought to the marriage could be quite expensive or valuable. The betrothal and wedding ceremonies of Muslim regions in the Middle Ages combined both local pre-Islamic traditions and Arab ceremonies promoted by the Prophet. and celebrated during the festival of Purim. depicted in the biblical book of Esther. quite elaborate. like those in Christianity and Judaism. but grooms were generally adult men. actual ceremonies were. According to the standard sources. especially if the families being joined were wealthy. Girls were expected to be virgins unless they were widows.

Grooms and Brides. When the wedding day arrived. They might not begin conventional married life for years. with the women feasting and dancing with the bride. complete with raucous celebrations and the display of the bloody sheets. using elaborate designs that depended upon local custom. the groom gave a ring to the bride. but several rituals seem to have been consistent. the newlyweds did not necessarily launch into married life immediately. the youth of the newlyweds might mean that they neither consummated the marriage after the wedding nor lived together for some years afterwards. Wedding feasts in peasant culture involved entire villages and it is likely that multiple marriages took place at one time.
. the bride’s female relatives decorated her hands and feet with henna. even the observation of the parents of the newlyweds to the sexual act itself. and dancing that could go on for days. Among the wealthier members of society. money. were far more typical. and she was transported to her new husband’s house on the back of a horse or camel. The western church actually opposed the celebration of the wedding night—and the obligatory display of bloody sheets that indicated the bride’s virginity—because they feared that the newlyweds would become obsessed with sex. since many villages did not have resident priests and anyone who wanted a formal marriage needed a priest to perform it. Sometimes the bride and groom returned to their respective homes or the groom went off to school for an advanced education. and clothing. Among European Jewry. in addition to the regular marriage gift and bride price. Husbands and Wives. In some parts of the Muslim world. the bride’s hands and feet were decorated with henna. Fathers and Mothers
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The marriage ceremonies in the Islamic world of the Middle Ages varied considerably. the groom’s hands were also decorated. Instead. The betrothal was then celebrated publicly. ancient traditions were blended with Muslim social requirements in the creation of elaborate and expensive rituals that continue to the present day. These celebrations could go on for days. After the terms of the betrothal were finalized. In Muslim culture.5 Once the wedding ceremony—such as it was—had been performed. and the men with the groom. The wedding was a celebration with food. music. most couples ignored these strictures and the common culture. the wedding feast was an important milestone for the married couple as well with celebrations going on for days and rituals involving female members of the bride’s family visiting her daily for a week to ensure her wellbeing after the wedding night. In Egypt. but in the Middle Ages it is likely that the celebrations were segregated by sex. Needless to say. enclosed in a tent so that no one on the route could see her. Before the wedding. including food from the wedding feast. she was clothed in an elaborate dress and jewelry. they pronounced that any sexual activity between newlyweds for the first three days was sinful and required absolution and penance. it was traditional for the families of the newlyweds to give alms to the poor.

National Library (Dar-al-Kutub). newlyweds did not necessarily occupy their own homes. in western peasant culture young people often were barred from marrying until the groom’s father (usually) was dead because there was no other way to establish a household. 15th c. but they did not achieve true independence until either the new husband or the new wife had attained his or her inheritance. Cairo. widows and heiresses were very popular marriage partners for young men because they had their own property where the couple could establish their independence. a separate residence for the new couple. Egypt.130
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Once married and settled. and both cultures frowned upon the remarriage of widows unless they were still fertile and childless. Young couples often lived with the groom’s parents. Photo Credit: Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource. Indeed. From Firdousi. Jews in western
Harem scene from the Persian Book of Kings. The medieval aristocracy usually set aside either a portion of the family residence or. if there was more than one. NY. although the practice of polygamy among the wealthiest Muslim families changed the relationship between husbands and wives significantly. Mamluk dynasty.
. Shah Nameh. The situation was quite similar in Byzantine and Muslim culture.

Remaining single—that is. small fruits.Grooms and Brides. There was no significant stigma attached to widow or widower status. with men being barred from the women’s quarters unless they were directly related to the women in question (either husband. unlike Christian wives. at least in the ideal form. including instructing the stewards who were in charge of agriculture. Fathers and Mothers
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Europe tended to avoid living in multi-generational households. The female venue was conceived of as private: domestic responsibilities such as cleaning and cooking or overseeing servants in such pursuits. in Muslim culture and possibly among elite Byzantine families. Among Jewish
. the reality was far more fluid. Peasant women were indeed responsible for all of the myriad jobs around the house. child care. Indeed. both as sellers in the market stalls and as servants buying for their employers’ needs. duties in administration. brother. Poor people did not have the luxury of separating their public and private spaces and roles. never marrying at all—on the other hand. but it is reasonable to assume that peasant women in the Byzantine Empire lived similarly to those living in other parts of the medieval world. Husbands and Wives All four medieval cultures embodied very specific views on the roles played by husbands and wives. and vegetables were raised. Aristocratic women had to oversee the running of the household. The male venue was conceived of as public: outdoor pursuits. We know far less about the daily lives of Byzantine women. maintaining the kitchen garden where herbs. quite severe. and acting as patron for the wellbeing of the workers and their families on their estates. or son) or were eunuchs. Poor Muslim women were seen in the public markets all the time. Jewish wives were often involved in money lending and trade. investing family income. Although this separation of spheres can be seen as something of an ideal in the Middle Ages. Evidence from the martyr lists of the Rhineland Jews suggest that most households were comprised of parents (or a single parent) and children. was frowned upon as being antisocial. and Jews whose spouses had died were neither encouraged to remarry—unless they did not have any children to succeed them—nor discouraged from doing so. public buildings. the separation of spheres was. producing cloth for the household’s use. Husbands and Wives. but they also often had to oversee the running of the rest of the family estates. but they also had to supplement male labor in the fields during planting and harvest and they also sold goods in the weekly markets. the sexual relationship between husband and wife cemented both the family and the society. and. they did not have to have a male representative to conduct business for them or secure the permission of their husbands. Jews were mystified by the Christian promotion of celibacy as a moral and religious benefit. and so on. To them. jobs in commerce and agriculture. taking care of poultry. with grandparents only rarely included. wealthy people often saw those spheres overlap by sheer necessity.

Manuscript illustration from the 15th c. Husbands were loving
An urban family runs a tailor shop. investors. that were considered exclusively female.
. Paris.132
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families. Bibliotheque Nationale. There was no traditional or physical barrier between maleonly and female-only spaces. as will be discussed in chapter 9. In the Jewish home. One significant difference was that only men could attain any higher education and this restriction meant that the male-only environment of the yeshiva and the synagogue’s rabbinate remained the case until the modern period.A. Couples enjoyed each other’s company and squabbled over everything.95. however. and businesspeople in trades in which their husbands might or might not be engaged.N.L. Both men and women engaged in business. there was a similar blending of the sexes. on work and the medieval family. Photo Credit: Snark/Art Resource. Relations between husbands and wives were as complex in the Middle Ages as they are today. NY. Fol. the separation of the sexes was far less significant. with women becoming moneylenders. Ms. There were certain jobs. 1673. Wives were careful household managers and solicitous spouses and were also nags and scolds. France.

and appreciation for the hard work each was doing. concerns about their children and other members of the family. and two daughters after they were brutally murdered before his eyes by Christian crusaders in 1197. Her death was devastating to her
. happiness at the idea of seeing each other. and his replies contain much more news about business than expressions of affection. Margaret Paston’s letters to her husband. A famous work on household management. it also limited the number of children who were born into the family. The family was very close-knit. Dulcia. Peasant couples had to operate as partners to insure the survival of their families. someone of higher social status as well. such as including the names of wives or husbands in prayers and in donations to monasteries and churches. took care of the students attending his yeshiva school. Husbands and Wives. a fifteenth-century English gentry family who also had significant business interests in the wool trade. Conventional expressions of regard exist. She purchased parchment to make books. Fathers and Mothers
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and kind and they also abused their wives and children. Germany. Letters written by merchants and urban leaders in medieval Italy indicate that many missed their wives and families when they traveled and that they held their wives in high regard.8 In this poem. she will be better able to attract and care for a new husband. it is possible to talk about their emotional lives. John. but the need to operate as a unit probably did encourage the couple to try to work out differences and conflicts constructively. Noblemen had to attend royal courts. sewed Torah scrolls. If the lengthy correspondence of the Paston family. is an example. Men had to perform military service. in the dirge (a funeral poem of mourning) he wrote for his wife.6 The Paston letters provide a great deal of information on the doings of well-off but not noble families in late medieval England. the full range of behavior that exists today existed six hundred years ago. spouses were often separated for long periods of time. Merchants had to travel over long distances. In wealthier households.Grooms and Brides. This not only limited the time spouses spent with each other. sewed dresses for brides. the men in the family often were away for years on end because of litigation in which the family was engaged. In other words. written by an elderly merchant in Paris for his teenage bride. but the couple do express worries about each other’s health. even if some of what follows is speculative.7 One of the most famous expressions of marital devotion was that created by Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms. with many family members engaged in both trade and estate management together. contains personal touches: the young wife is instructed to learn her lessons well because when her current husband dies. This did not prevent the kinds of domestic violence that still occurs today. which focuses especially on his wife. and prepared the dead for burial. taught the women of the community. knights had to attend their lord’s court. known as the Rokeah. the Rokeah describes the ways in which Dulcia earned his everlasting devotion and praise. Although medieval people rarely left behind obvious indications of the regard they felt for spouses.

42130. Dhuoda. . c. NY.”9 Other medieval documents show less happy and productive marital relationships.208. A prisoner of her husband and subject to his every whim. that the boys should not hate their father for his inability to love his family. she returned [his kindness] with goodness . Her husband.134
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Sir Geoffrey Luttrell dining with his family. William.1340. In her letter she emphasized that William should take care of his younger brother. London.
husband: “Her husband’s heart trusted in her. had had a very unhappy life. away from her while he was still a small child. . England. he arrived and took the baby away. a ninth-century Carolingian-era noblewoman who wrote an educational manual for her elder son. Great Britain. From the Luttrell Psalter. Photo Credit: Art Resource. British Library.10
. Dhuoda did not even know the name of her infant son. was keeping her a virtual prisoner in one of his residences and had taken her son. She was more or less forbidden to have contact with her child. and that the boys’ obligations ultimately were to God. One result of these visits was pregnancy—but Dhuoda did not attain any happiness as a result. Bernard of Septimania who was a cousin of the emperor Charlemagne. but this did not prevent her husband from visiting her at his convenience. Add. She was glad to do the will of her husband and never once was she angry [with him]. As soon as her husband received the news that she had given birth to another boy. she was pleasant in her ways. Dhuoda never saw her children again and had to content herself with writing the lengthy letter of instruction to her older son as a way of influencing his behavior. f.

Husbands and Wives. Jerusalem. She was married to a prominent merchant. c.
A more complex picture of marital life appears in The Book of Margery Kempe. German manuscript. Margery began to hear voices. Eventually. and they lived sometimes in Bishop’s Lynn and sometimes in Norwich. Fathers and Mothers
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A Jewish family’s Passover meal. and Jesus himself. she began to see these heavenly beings as well. but her experiences were not necessarily all that different from those of other women of her class even if her presentation of them is a bit weird. Margery’s famous autobiography contains fascinating information about married life among the late medieval gentry. John Kempe. She was something of a crackpot. Collection of Texts on the Script and Prayer. Israel Museum.Grooms and Brides. Photo Credit: Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource. which she claimed were those of the Archangel Michael.11 Margery was an early fifteenth-century member of the urbanized gentry in England: her father had been the mayor of Bishop’s Lynn (now called King’s Lynn). NY. After enduring an extreme post-partum depression following the birth of her first child. Margery and her husband were married when she was about twenty years old and she was soon pregnant. 1400. Norfolk. Israel. Saint Ann. Throughout her catatonic
. the county seat of Norfolk. Haggadah for Passover.

Given the fact that most married people did not choose their spouses on the basis of personal attraction. she describes the two of them sitting at the base of a cross in the king’s highway to Bridlington arguing about whether Margery’s desire for chastity outweighed the social companionship John viewed as essential to the marriage. the nature of marriage worked against such emotional displays. which means that expressions of emotional connection would have been considered inappropriate. Margery’s husband even endured a period of time in which she fell in love with another man.136
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state after the birth and afterwards. After a particularly pleasant night. it is often hard to tease out expressions of real emotions. and forms one of the main discourses in her book. As a result. conclusions about the emotional lives of husbands and wives must be tentative. and autobiographies that do exist. He paid Margery’s debts when she started—and failed at—a brewing business. In one memorable scene. Margery’s view of the afterlife seems to have been more earthy than ethereal. since the couple’s marriage was likely at best an affectionate partnership rather than
. For one thing. a considerate wife. He did not give into her entreaties to stop engaging in sex until after their fourteenth child was born. and an active developer of business and political relationships that would help her husband. In the letter collections. which alarmed her because good Christians were not supposed to enjoy sex. The documents that demonstrate how husbands and wives behaved toward each other are largely legal or literary. people in heaven must be very happy and be having a good time). diaries. For another thing. There was clearly a sexual spark between them as well: she describes her sexual life as energetic and satisfying. it is not surprising that medieval records do not demonstrate many significant emotional connections between husbands and wives. Finally. the cost of writing paper or parchment was very high. instead it focused on an idealized relationship of service and duty between a knight and a lady—usually the wife of his overlord. Certainly. he resisted and negotiated until they both got more or less what each wanted: Margery was given leave to travel on pilgrimage (her husband occasionally accompanied her) and he got her in his bed. Margery’s husband held the family together. Margery was for the most part a good household manager.12 Certainly. Margery awoke beside her husband saying “Alas. and treated her with kindness and consideration when her heart was broken. virtually all such sources were dictated to secretaries or clerks. with few personal letter collections or diaries available to provide an inside view. the passionate love poetry enjoyed by the aristocracy was not about married couples very often. that ever I did sin.13 The conflict between sexual pleasure and those of a heavenly afterlife weighed very heavily on Margery. And when Margery tried to convince him that they should stop having sexual intercourse. it is full merry in heaven” (that is. so it would have seemed wasteful to go on elaborately about feelings when important business needed to be discussed. In return.

and a good father. leading to enormous tension. even when they reconciled. but their devotion was determined by factors relating more to day-to-day life needs than by emotional needs. Aristocrats throughout the medieval world probably had few expectations that they would be happy in their marriages (at least in our sense of the term) but they could expect reasonable partnerships with their spouses. it is far more likely to find evidence of emotional displays in unhappy marriages than in happy ones. and he
. The result was extremely distressing and disruptive to the entire family dynamic at a time of political turmoil as well. These kinds of evidence suggest that people’s emotional lives were not necessarily bound up in their marriages. a public scandal especially since Eleanor was nine years older than Henry. who was considered a social inferior. Fathers and Mothers
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an engrossing and intimate relationship. Among royal marriages. King Henry II of England and his wife. willing to negotiate. tried to have it annulled. the ideal husband was generous. a good provider. As described by the Menagier of Paris. especially by the husband and wife heading the household. when the family’s business interests were at risk. remarrying after the death of a spouse could make it possible for two people who actually knew and liked each other to form a union. Indeed. to assess their preferences and the ways in which choices were made. the ideal wife was thrifty. Indeed.14 It is harder to assess marital life on both higher and lower social class levels. and a good mother. kind. industrious. The Paston letters suggest that the best marriages were those where business interests and the continued success of the family were goals shared by everyone. In addition. the careful plans of their families could be severely disrupted. uncomplaining. and even tried beating Margery into submission. Richard Calle.Grooms and Brides. They had eloped almost immediately after the annulment of Eleanor’s marriage to Charles VII of France. kind to her husband. and they married in secret. As Margery Kempe described. he was not yet king of England (although soon destined to be). Marriage among the wealthiest and most influential people of the Middle Ages was so much a politically motivated act that very few people had the luxury of the kinds of debate and compromise that seems to have been present in Margery Kempe’s marriage. when a young couple did fall in love. When Margaret and John Paston’s daughter Margery fell in love with the family’s steward. Peasants left so few records behind that it is difficult. indulgent of his whims. if not impossible. the furor caused by her insistence on marrying a man of her own choice was extreme. and Margaret’s and John’s relationship with their daughter never lost an overtone of bitterness. The records relating to several famous (and a few infamous) marriages as well as less well-known connections can serve to illustrate the probable range of relationships. Spouses were devoted to each other. Husbands and Wives. Margaret tried to force her daughter to give up her marriage. Eleanor of Aquitaine had a famously passionate marriage. but to no avail. this range can be seen in the full glare of the public eye. although devotion to children was commonly mentioned in them.

since his new bride was the king of France’s sister. even to the point of placing an interdict on France and excommunicating Philip. one that. because Philip refused even to see Ingeborg afterwards and demanded an annulment. Henry and Eleanor’s son.138
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technically ought to have asked King Charles’s permission to marry. Although Edward did remarry. the king was forced to abandon his third wife (whose marriage was declared invalid on the grounds of bigamy) and to take back Ingeborg. her second son. although her affair with the earl of March. Braveheart. Philip II (known as Philip Augustus) was married (officially twice. Indeed. She would eventually outlive him to see her favorite. as a partial commemoration of this famously anti-Semitic queen. Eleanor of Castile. although begun when Eleanor was barely 12 and Henry was 28 (he was a very late bloomer. Edward I was also famously faithful and devoted to his first wife. but unofficially three) times. where she died. Edward II. Although the marriage had been carefully arranged—and was a good political match—something dreadful apparently occurred on the wedding night. When she died in 1290. was never unfaithful to his wife Eleanor of Provence and even was accused by some contemporary chronicles of being dominated by her. Innocent III. He then married his mistress. Henry even resorted to imprisoning Eleanor in one of his castles after she plotted with her sons to overthrow him. Margaret. brought him the most notoriety. Edward was noted as a very considerate and attentive husband. The pope. attain the English throne. Charles VII’s son (by his third wife. where she was interred. although she probably never saw her husband after that first harrowing night. was transformed into an equally passionate dislike. Richard. but he also deported the entire population of Jews from the country. Adela of Champagne) and successor. In the end. Isabella of France. seems to have had good reasons to abandon her husband in favor of promoting her son as king. this was largely a political move. Roger de Mortimer. Their relationship. to Westminster. Beatrice of Savoy). In contrast to his cousin Philip. Eleanor’s influence on her husband the king was considered dangerously significant by some members of the royal court. was both companionable and productive. unlike his son. and a mere year younger than Eleanor’ s own mother. but his second wife. was not pleased by all this mayhem and demanded he take Ingeborg back. Henry III of England was married once. whose reputation during his life was nearly as unsavory as his characterization in Mel Gibson’s completely unhistorical movie. Edward II’s wife. Philip imprisoned her and declared himself un-married. not only did he erect crosses at every stop her funeral procession made from York.
. All accounts of their marriage describe this event as driven by a grand passion. Ingeborg of Denmark. When she resisted and insisted the marriage had been consummated. She actually outlived him. after the production of eight children and the consolidation of their holdings into the most massive and formidable empire of the era. was looked upon less kindly by the political community.

. the duke of Lancaster. earl of Pembroke. the prevalence of polygamy completely altered the relationship between husbands and wives. such as consanguinity (the degree of kinship between a potential couple). even of devoted imperial couples operating as co-rulers over their territories. Church sources. their wives not only managed to keep the family properties safe. but certain wives could become quite prominent during a particular reign. emphasize the difference between so-called normal and abnormal sexual activity. it was “the business . and their contemporaries (and cousins) William de Valence and Joan de Munchesney each exemplified the kinds of cooperative relationships between spouses that probably illustrate the best an aristocratic marriage could hope for. . The famous Kurdish general Saladin was notable as a devoted husband and father. John of Gaunt. although on a less grandiose scale. the count of Blois. as was his commander. the Turk Nur ad-Din. the formidable Adela. Husbands and Wives. Byzantine chronicles abound with descriptions of emperors divorcing infertile wives. Fathers and Mothers
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The marriages of Byzantine emperors and empresses were. even western chronicles remark on the contrast between Saladin and his contemporary. is often depicted as being ruled by his wife. the size of dowries.”15 Sources emphasize conformity with legal and social concerns. Indeed. desperate for a male heir. King Richard I of England (Richard Lionheart). Emperors Constantine VI and Leo VI
. he did not count on his daughter spurning her teenage husband (she was some years older) and eloping with her lover. being highly sexed was considered a dangerous abnormality that could lead to adultery or an inability to live chastely after the death of a spouse. While it was believed that sexual desire was a normal part of being human. of wives becoming empresses upon the deaths of their husbands and ruling over sons. When. whose father was William the Conqueror. especially saints’ lives. In the Muslim world. if anything. Aristocratic marriages were not all that different from royal ones. even more convoluted than those of the western European crowned heads. Examples of aristocratic marriages outside the Christian west are harder to tease out of the sources for Byzantine and Islamic history. married his daughter Elizabeth to the much younger John de Hastings. during the baronial rebellion against King Henry III led by the earl of Leicester Simon de Montfort. Maud de Braose. Even when. Aristocratic marriages could also go badly awry. both Roger and William were exiled and threatened with imprisonment. in the fourteenth century. John Holand. Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore and his wife. whose behavior as a husband was nothing short of scandalous. Stephen. and the ages of the betrothed couple.Grooms and Brides. of an entire social class. to Spain. For Byzantine aristocrats. marriage was not merely the union of two individuals or even of two families. where Duke John was trying to settle in as co-ruler of Castile with his own young bride. they engineered their husbands’ return from exile and were acclaimed as devoted partners.

Nicephoras I. bad marriages could be—and probably sometimes were—dissolved. was slandered by the court historian Procopius. which appears throughout all the cultures of the medieval world. described in lurid detail the sexual escapades of the magnate class. They were exemplary mothers. wife of Emperor Justinian I. who claimed that she had been a circus performer and notorious prostitute before she married Justinian. at least the outline of what constituted an ideal marriage can be discerned. The empress Theodora. according to these ideals. behaved modestly. such as eulogies and funeral orations. Nicetas Choniates.17 The depiction of sexual aberration in Byzantine imperial families has a long history. Husbands were given many more rights over their wives and children in the Middle Ages than today
. never arguing with their husbands.18 The most important elements. While many marriages undoubtedly achieved the ideal of conjugal affection.140
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were both accused of failing to control their sexual urges. Since divorce under certain circumstances (such as infertility) was possible in Byzantine law. So how close to these ideals were real marriages in Byzantine culture? Like the relationships between husbands and wives in western Europe. The empress Theophanu was accused of both adultery and of plotting the murder of her husband. and exhibited wisdom. however. This ideal. while idealized— no one wants to speak ill of the dead. Ideal wives spoke in low tones and rarely laughed. this ideal would have been difficult for most individuals to achieve. yelling insults. arguments that escalate into violence that causes some injury but is impermanent—that we would consider abuse today was more or less ubiquitous. especially in the last twenty years. of good and honorable parentage. but still others must have persisted. and physically attractive. loved their husbands unconditionally. others did not. could have been somewhat difficult to achieve since arranged marriages between near-strangers was the norm. Spousal Abuse in the Middle Ages How prevalent was spousal abuse in the Middle Ages? This question has occupied the energies of many historians. Clearly. after all—might be better windows into married life among the medieval Byzantine aristocracy. the reality was likely to have varied widely. Married couples ideally were close in age. to the detriment of their married lives. Other sources. In such sources. for a successful marriage were fertility—success in producing many children—and conjugal affection: that the couple both love and appreciate each other. the twelfth-century historian.16 Women’s sexual urges could also wreak havoc in a marriage. Historians have always assumed that the level of casual violence—slapping. but this can be seen more as social and political commentary on the decadence of the imperial government than as an accurate portrayal of the married lives of Byzantine aristocrats.

although the punishment for killing one’s husband was burning at the stake—it was considered petty treason in English law—the killing of a wife had far fewer and far less stringent consequences. and the like were rarer. even fellow-villagers— considered it appropriate to intervene when violence escalated. some historians have suggested that the statistics concerning spousal violence in the Middle Ages demonstrate that. and this idea makes it possible for husbands to chastise wives with impunity. to which her daughter had fled following a particularly brutal beating. Indeed. Although some historians see this as a form of informal divorce. torture. although Jewish law considered it a requirement that husbands treat wives with respect and the communities might have policed (or tried to police) their membership for signs of abuse. the traditional notion of the husband ruling the household still stands. In addition. indeed. extreme mental abuse. Indeed. a mother physically barred her son-in-law from her home. In the Middle Ages. wives) are still given a kind of societal permission to control unruliness in families and some men (and. There is some evidence that wife sales also occurred occasionally. however. this demonstrates how few options wives actually had if they were unable to develop a reasonable working relationship with their husbands. in some sub-cultures in the developed world. it is quite likely that the level of extreme violence within families in the Middle Ages parallels the kinds of statistics that measure such violence occurring today. and abuse were lower at that time than they are now in our supposedly advanced society. Husbands and Wives.19 Jewish families seem to have experienced similar levels of abuse and mistreatment. some women) interpret this unspoken permission as an open door to beating their wives (or husbands) and children. Recent studies of abuse in families suggest that this was likely the case. legal records attest to the prevalence of wife-murder and spousal abuse. in which (mostly) wives were subjected to life-threatening beatings. especially in the Mediterranean and England. the opposite was far more common. In another case. violence perpetrated by one
. there is some evidence that other people—members of the family. while the daily behavior patterns of married couples might have been more harsh.Grooms and Brides. Husbands often got away with a fine or penance. as now. Lest we feel smug that such episodes of horrific abuse no longer occur in so-called civilized portions of the developed world. Historians assume. Although wives did occasionally also kill their husbands.20 Husbands (and to a certain extent. that levels of extreme violence. In addition. in which husbands took their wives to a market center and sold them to another man. the prevalence of extreme levels of violence. In late medieval Provence. Christian neighbors even intervened when a Jewish serial abuser was beating his wife in the confines of their home: several neighbors rushed into the house and physically separated the couple. Fathers and Mothers
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and the social authorities actually encouraged (at least in writing) the so-called chastisement of wives for supposed infractions to the social order. In the High and late Middle Ages.

Family members would be unwilling to go the extra mile for someone they hated because of his violent behavior. emotional considerations following the death of a spouse—grief and distress—were often not mentioned in official documents about the obligations of the survivor. brothers. the typical period of mourning for widowed wives was one year. to control this kind of deviant behavior and it is likely that such controls would have occurred under the radar of the legal system. and illness in similar numbers. who had to wait for financial reasons until such an end in order to afford to marry and start a new family. sometimes as soon as three months after the funeral. The birth of children always brought with it the possibility of their early deaths or the death of the mother in labor. it would have been important to members of the extended family. these systems were more alike than different. Perhaps surprisingly. men were given far more freedom to remarry following the death of a wife than were women after their husbands’ death. The incidence of early death was very high in the Middle Ages among all social classes: women died as a result of childbirth in large numbers and men died as the result of accidents. All the life stages of the medieval family could bring both happiness and sadness and the ways in which people coped reflected this tension. although these emotions are mentioned occasionally in chronicles and letters. In contrast. The death of a spouse was not only traumatic for the entire family.142
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family member against the others worked against family cohesion. All four medieval cultures had extensive rules regarding the process of recovery and remarriage following the death of a spouse. As a result. such as in-laws. it changed the family’s economic and social dynamic dramatically. From western Europe to the Near East. Indeed. long term marriages of two decades and more were more the exception than the rule simply because it was so often the case that one of the partners died young. and sisters. The death of a parent could mean the possibility of marriage for members of the next generation. cousins. although in Muslim culture the wait was
. The death of a spouse could confer independent status and wealth on the survivor. especially in the radically different ways in which men and women were treated during a period of widowhood. war. In all four cultures. Although such events were—and can continue to be—disruptive in all cultures and at all times. When a Partner Died: Widowhood and Remarriage The medieval family was unusually susceptible to the kinds of lifechanging events that can cause enormous disruption and anxiety. who might experience that security for the very first time by becoming a widow or widower. the cultures of the medieval world might have been somewhat less well equipped to address them both publicly and privately. In addition. men were generally permitted to remarry quite soon after a wife’s death.

Marriage before the period of mourning ended could result in everything from monetary fines to. This might seem counterintuitive. excommunication. it became standard practice for free widows of all social classes to gain at least nominal control over their remarriage. might be grateful to be able to take vows
. Indeed. widows who remarried lost guardianship of their children and husbands often added monetary incentives to their wills in order to discourage their wives from remarrying. Widows were popular as marriage partners in both the Islamic and Jewish communities. on the other hand. In both cultures widows acquired independent control over their marriage portions and property acquired from their late husbands. especially if they had grown children. widows were actively discouraged from remarrying. Men were far more likely to remarry in part because they might want to have more legitimate children to guarantee the passing of their property to another of their line. since England’s system worked from the top. one of the most important clauses in the original Magna Carta of 1215 between King John of England and his barons (and one that features prominently in all versions of the charter thereafter) emphasizes that the king could not marry a widow against her will to another man. and women needed husbands to protect them. but in fact the opposite seems to have been true. down. “two-thirds of women widowed in their twenties. the rates of remarriage among men of all social classes tended to be quite a bit higher than that of women throughout the medieval world. and ninetenths widowed at thirty or older” remained unmarried. This was different from almost any other region in the medieval world. a widow with children thereby proved her fertility. In addition. where widows were limited in their choices. in Christian lands. and others compelled to marry again.21 Under most Italian law. in part because there was a certain social stigma attached to men who were unmarried but continued to be sexually active—and the children of such unions would be condemned as illegitimate—and in part because social concerns about the reliability of hired help in caring for children and the household were very real. while women often had to negotiate strenuously to remain single if members of their families—or their overlords or the king—were determined to marry them to other men. Women. This eventually developed into a system whereby a widow “in the king’s gift” could pay a nominal fee to gain control of her own remarriage and therefore choose—perhaps for the first time in her life—whether or not she wanted another husband and who that man might be. some denied remarriage. men could choose to remarry or not. in late medieval Florence. In medieval Italy. Significantly. since it could be thought that men could hire women to do the same jobs their wives performed. Husbands and Wives. even though quite a few of them lived for a very long time. an important consideration for both Muslim and Jewish men.Grooms and Brides. In addition. For example. Fathers and Mothers
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much shorter: four and one-half months. In addition.

The couple disliked each other intensely. In contrast. Some of the most long-lived women who lived outside the cloister had been widowed for many years. the only one with whom she had been happy. with widowers dying younger than their female counterparts. who was of noble birth but not at all the social stature of Alice. men who did not remarry often did not long outlive their dead spouse. Alice’s safety was in serious jeopardy. Almost every woman who reached the age of 60 and beyond in the medieval world had probably been widowed for a number of years. so when Ebulo died tragically. some second marriages were considerably happier than first marriages. which were necessary in the Christian west in order to remain both unmarried and respectable. probably to save Alice’s reputation. in part because abduction and sexual assault were seen to go hand in hand). Edward III agreed to the demand. This was a very unhappy marriage. she was again in danger of abduction: the kingdom was in an uproar following the overthrow of Edward II and the minority of Edward III. but upon her death she insisted on being buried next to the body of Ebulo. Alice was devastated. Indeed. An ambitious knight. and Alice soon removed herself from Thomas’s presence and settled on one of her own estates. and they were able easily to hire efficient managers of their estates or workshops. and then shipped Sir Hugh off to Scotland. Ironically. as mentioned in section 1. where he was soon killed during the military campaign against the Bruces. Hugh le Fresne. In contrast to her first marriage. Thomas earl of Lancaster. especially when widows could make their own choices of marriage partner. Second (or even third) marriages could have significant repercussions for the family. Thomas’s political activities led his enemies to take their revenge by abducting Alice and holding her to ransom—a situation that might have included a physical assault as well (the term “rape” in medieval Latin had a number of meanings. The stress of blending families could be high and the birth of new half-siblings could be threatening to the older children. widows outlived married women by large margins.144
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of chastity. her second husband. statistically. this union was apparently both loving and satisfying. Ebulo Lestrange. a similar contrast occurs even today. To make matters worse. and eventually married a member of her household. On the other hand. Alice Lacy. abducted Alice.22
. in part because of the all too public animosity the couple had displayed during Thomas’s life. She secured her own independence. raped her. One notable example occurred in the fourteenth century. When Thomas was executed for treason as the leader of the baronial party against King Edward II. the daughter of Henry Lacy and Margery Longespee and heir of two earldoms—Lincoln and Salisbury—had been married while very young to her cousin. Alice was then able to live the rest of her life in comparative safety. and then demanded that he be permitted to marry her (this was unfortunately the church court’s most usual punishment for rapists). and thereby prevent the real possibility of dying in childbirth.

and the result was not only a separation of the spouses but also of the material assets of the married couple. then their parents invariably arranged subsequent marriages for them. Sir Roger de Leyburn. Very little is actually known or understood about the marriage culture of the Byzantine world beyond that of the imperial and noble households. still fertile. Fathers and Mothers
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Other second marriages among the aristocracy could be seen as combining political expediency with social ambition. Eleanor used the opportunity to again elope. she promptly eloped with one of her father’s household knights. The husband returned the wife’s dowry to her and she retained the marriage gift unless she was divorced on account of adultery. a number of Byzantine emperors who remarried three or four times found themselves at loggerheads with the leaders of the Byzantine Church and several were condemned for their marital activities. the ability of women to control their sexual urges was a hotly debated topic and widows who remarried were assumed to be unable to control their sexuality. were far more restricted in their choices. Thus. with one important exception. Roger de Quency. they were nonetheless vilified for failing to maintain their chastity following the death of their first husbands. of whom the king approved. and she settled for a man. This assumption placed them in marginal positions: constrained by the requirements of the society to produce children.24 Widows. The dissolving of a marriage under Islamic law had to be initiated by the husband. When Eleanor de Ferrers inherited a small portion of the vast earldom of Pembroke from her mother in 1245. in contrast to the west. both Muslim and Jewish cultures permitted divorce. Upon his death. Unlike Christian Europe. His death resulted in a significant rise in her personal fortunes. a relatively modest fine being all the punishment she endured. This presented significant problems for Byzantine emperors whose second wives had died or failed to produce the necessary male heir. Indeed.Grooms and Brides. so Eleanor was able to be more conventional in her third marriage in that she did not elope.23 Other women and men were not so lucky. Both parties
. and Jewish worlds of the Middle Ages similar situations occurred. If they were. In the Byzantine. In Byzantine Christianity. indeed. although this was far easier to obtain in the former than in the latter. but the process of remarriage following death was similar to that of western Europe. one William de Vaux. it was considered very irregular and highly suspect to marry more than twice: third and fourth marriages were forbidden by the Byzantine Church and could result in excommunication. but this time in spectacular fashion: she married the elderly earl of Winchester. Eleanor was able to gain a significant benefit from flying in the face of royal restrictions. Muslim. They were actively discouraged from remarrying unless they were still young and childless. but their social status was adversely affected by a second marriage. Husbands and Wives. According to Byzantine law.

his wife might never know what became of him and she would be unable to secure her dowry and marriage portion. Such charges also appear in other contexts. In addition. Bishops were responsible for adjudicating marriage disputes in their regular court sessions. When this occurred. although they represent only a small portion of the daily business of the courts. the marriages were in fact determined to be valid. or remarry. for example on a long business trip to far away lands. Since divorce was almost non-existent outside the Muslim world. where the determination of valid marriage had to be made. Nevertheless. but such households were likely to have been significantly disadvantaged from an economic standpoint.146
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were free to remarry after such a divorce. when a widow sued the heir (usually in this case not her own child) for dower in the central courts of Common Pleas. the case had to be adjourned to the bishop’s court. Medieval Jewish couples were sometimes known to practice something known as conditional divorce. the problem of single divorced women in Christian culture did not often appear. and these form a significant bulk of documents from those courts. so this could be seen as a useful delaying tactic
. The conditional divorce made it possible for her to gain control of her finances and her family for the time her husband was away and in the event that he failed to return. especially in England. the defendantheir occasionally argued that the widow had no claim to the property on the basis that she was not actually married to the man she identified as her late husband. The reasons for this conditional divorce lay in the dangers of long-distance travel and trade. he might divorce his wife on condition that the marriage would resume upon his return within a specific period of time. where record-keeping was far more advanced than on the continent until the fourteenth century. If a man died while away from home. It is not clear whether there were large numbers of single-female households in the Muslim regions of the medieval Mediterranean. This litigation reveals that people made far more informal alterations to their living arrangements than the legal ideal would suggest and that it could sometimes be difficult to determine even if a legal marriage had occurred! Cases of bigamy were fairly common occurrences in the bishops’ courts all over England. In most of these cases. more informal—and illegal—arrangements for dissolving marriages that occurred especially among the lower classes did result in a phenomenon that has become very useful to the medieval historian: litigation concerning marriage (especially charges of bigamy) that was heard in the diocesan courts of Europe. so divorced wives could be compelled to abandon their own children. it is likely that divorce benefited men more than women. gain guardianship of her children. Only after the marriage had been declared valid could the dower plea continue. For example. Nevertheless. If a man was going to be away for an extended period of time. the children from the marriage probably stayed with their father.

civil.”25 This meant that wives could not make contracts or wills. . . Indeed. On the other hand. the wife was liable only if the stolen goods were found in a locked cupboard because the wife was the keeper of the keys (in fact. Wives were usually not liable for their husbands’ debts (at least while he was still alive) and could not usually be accused as an accessory to crimes committed by their husbands. Since the wife’s legal personality more or less did not exist. In all these systems. Fathers and Mothers
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on the part of the heir who resisted turning over a third of his property to the widow. In this circumstance. could not sue in court. could not charge their husbands with abuse. legal systems do today). even as modern laws against spousal abuse were until very recently extremely difficult to enforce. the emphasis in all legal systems was placed on problems that could occur between husbands and wives (as. wives were protected—at least theoretically—from punishment for certain kinds of offenses perpetrated by their husbands. the discussion of marriage in the Middle Ages can look bleak indeed. husbands controlled all the property their wives
. In terms of specifics. These included not just the obvious issues of abuse and infertility. This is one reason why widowhood could be seen by many women as a moment of true liberation from an oppressive system. agreed that in the eyes of the law. In all the legal systems of the medieval world— Roman. could not sue for divorce (although in Muslim and Jewish culture this was somewhat moderated). but also such things as whether a wife was liable if her husband was a thief and brought stolen goods home with him from a heist. and that person was the husband. Common. Muslim. English common law makes this inequality quite explicit: “Common lawyers. Nevertheless. customary. beat her) but he was not permitted to do permanent damage to her physically or mentally. In cases of abuse. the institution of marriage as described in the legal systems of the Middle Ages place all the advantages in the hands of males and virtually all liabilities in the hands of females. Husbands and Wives. wives had no legal personality: they were not considered to be individuals separate from their husbands. the husband and wife were one person. the key-ring worn by noblewomen in France was known as a chatelaine for this very reason) and so was responsible for the secreting of the stolen property. indeed. Byzantine. the law in England—which was not that different in this context from laws of other western kingdoms—was that a husband was permitted to chastise his wife (that is. and often could not gain custody of their children if their husbands died. and Judaic—the fundamental basis of the relationship between husbands and wives was their legal inequality. it must have been very difficult to enforce even this law. Christian.Grooms and Brides. Conclusions: Husbands and Wives in Law and Literature In the legal literature.

This is discussed by Gary Vikan. beauty.
. and Politics in England 1225–1350 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 1977). Mitchell. Marriage. 169–192 and Mitchell. given away. and customs.” in Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe. disagree in public with) their husbands while the latter were alive and could be forced to sign contracts which bound them as independent actors in such agreements. And when one spouse died. to reiterate that the legal systems of the medieval world focused on areas of conflict.e. not on defining what constituted a typical relationship between husband and wife. too. Perhaps the most positive description of a married couple for the Middle Ages can be found in the romance. and gentleness. written by Chretien de Troyes around 1170:
A perfect match they were in courtesy. They had to divide the labor of the marriage rationally. manner.” in Portraits of Medieval Women: Family. And they were so alike in quality.26
Notes
1. which had retained a notion of community property that gave wives a bit more say in what happened to the property they brought into a marriage. so that they were well suited to each other. 43–56. that no one wishing to tell the truth could choose the better of them. If we look too much at the highly negative picture of marriage that the legal literature presents. even when the law demanded that it be preserved. 2003). were much alike. or destroyed without their permission. Nevertheless. Erec and Enid. Thus each steals the other’s heart away. we can lose an essential perspective about medieval marriage: that it was probably most frequently a partnership in the best sense of the term. Married partners had no choice but to try to get along as best they could. but often those suits were unsuccessful.” in Davis. Their sentiments. “Heroism and Duty: Maud Mortimer of Wigmore’s Contributions to the Royalist Cause. 2. however.148
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brought to the marriage. Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. “Noble Widowhood in the Thirteenth Century: Three Generations of Mortimer Widows. Natalie Zemon Davis discusses this in “The Reasons of Misrule. it was as true of France as elsewhere that wives experienced far less independence than did widows. they mourned. “Art and Marriage in Early Byzantium” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 145–163. 1246–1334. see Linda E. ed. 1992). For an extended discussion of Maud and Roger Mortimer. One exception to this standard situation occurred in medieval France. because wives could not gainsay (i. and wives had no say in what happened to it: it often could be sold. nor the fairer. widows sued for a return of property that had been taken against their will. Occasionally. 3. nor the more discreet. They had to raise their children together. Law or marriage never brought together two such sweet creatures.. Louise Mirrer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 97–123. It is important.

For a discussion of the differences between medieval and modern spousal abuse. above. 16. 36–54. 5 (1987): 1085–1110 and in Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge. “Art and Marriage in Early Byzantium. and ed. “Conflict. Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua to Marguerite Porete (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ed. Miriam Müller. Brozyna. Norton and Company. trans. Tania Bayard (New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Isabel Davis. 19. see Bednarski. 180. 179. 2001). Angeliki E. 13. 186–187. 1992). and Sarah Rees Jones (Turnhout: Brepols. 19–20. see “Dhuoda” in Peter Dronke. 10. 15. Mariage.us/schwww/sch618/Women/Weddings. Husbands and Wives. 11. 6.” 5. translation mine. 49. http://www.ca. ed. and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages. 91–93. Norton Critical Edition. 10. 14.html and Wedding Ceremonies and Customs in Various Islamic Lands—Past and Present. Strife. Several Web sites describe Muslim wedding ceremonies. 2003).” 1085–1086. Lynn Staley (New York: W. 7. A good. 9. Stow. For a lucid analysis of Dhuoda’s work.sfusd. 8. Laiou. as well as lengthy quotations of it. 21. See Steven Bednarski. Ann Morton Crabb. 12. see Gary Vikan. Roger Virgoe (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. “The Jewish Family in the Rhineland. 1984). 183. and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages.Grooms and Brides. 196–198. 74. Hereafter referred to as Paston Letters. A good edition of selections from the voluminous correspondence of the Pastons is Illustrated Letters of the Paston Family: Private Life in the Fifteenth Century. ed. Laiou. See Ahmed Negm. 17. Fathers and Mothers
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4. trans. Martha A. translation is A Medieval Home Companion: Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century. amour et parenté à Byzance. Marriage.
.” 311–330 in Love. Mariage. W. 18. The best recent edition is The Book of Margery Kempe. amour et parenté à Byzance. For an extended discussion of these depictions. “Egyptian Marriage Customs of the Past and Present. Book of Margery Kempe. 184.zawaj. Laiou.com/weddingways/Egypt_ customs. and Miriam Müller. Mentioned at length by Kenneth Stow in both “The Jewish Family in the Rhineland in the High Middle Ages: Form and Function” The American Historical Review 92. http://www. 20.k12.” in Wedding Customs Around the Muslim World. html. amour et parenté à Byzance aux XIe-XIIIe siècles (Paris: De Boccard. Book of Margery Kempe. Marriage. “Not Just a Family Affair: Domestic Violence and the Ecclesiastical Courts in Late Medieval Poland. and Cooperation: Aspects of the Late Medieval Family and Household. no. 1992). Mariage. Paston Letters. 277–299. MA: Harvard University Press. albeit abridged. 1991). 1989). and ed. “How Typical was Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi of Fifteenth-Century Florentine Widows?” in Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe. 70. Laiou. 1992).” 299– 310. 9. Mariage. “Keeping it in the Family? Domestic Violence in the Later Middle Ages: Examples from a Provençal Town (1340–1403)” in Love. Louise Mirrer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. amour et parenté à Byzance.

This does not mean that women gave birth to only two or three children in a lifetime. even the wealthiest. when considering the position of children in the family. the roles of children in medieval culture often carried far more responsibility than those of children in developed nations today. such as age of consent to marriage. earliest age of employment. The legal systems established the categories of childhood and adulthood according to gender as well as linear age. and treated.
. had little actual relevance for most people. although it did exist in the Middle Ages. with two or three children surviving to adulthood. throughout the medieval world. and so on. and into adulthood it is necessary always to keep in mind that the values of medieval society differed to a great degree from ours. especially when considering specific life stages. Indeed. child labor was very common. age of majority. youth. Family Size in the Middle Ages Medieval families. were usually fairly small. how they were raised. and that different social classes interacted with their children differently. except for wealthy young men who were unable to take control of their inheritances before that time. indeed typical. there were many different categories used to establish both child status and adulthood. The basic formula of reaching one’s majority at 18 or 21. Indeed. adolescence. educated. In addition. Therefore.8
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The medieval definition of child is somewhat different from that of today. and how they passed through the typical life stages of infancy.

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it is likely that women experienced frequent pregnancies, but that they also experienced frequent miscarriages and infant deaths in childbirth. In addition, the physical separation of spouses that occurred among married couples of the upper classes could limit pregnancy. Elite men were required to spend several months a year attending the king, emperor, or caliph/amir, performing military service, or performing administrative services. Men engaged in long distance trade or involved in elite mercantile activities, such as the Paston men or Jewish international travelers, could be separated from their wives for years on end. This could, of course, have a significant impact on family size. Birth control was forbidden among all medieval people except for Jews, who were permitted to use a sponge device—similar in shape to today’s cervical sponge—to prevent pregnancy under certain circumstances. Even though it was illegal, however, medieval Christians did in fact make use of birth control to limit families, especially in times of hardship.1 The most typical form was the practice of coitus interruptus, but extending the time of breast feeding, which has an impact on female fertility when the mother’s caloric intake is barely adequate, could also be used to prevent pregnancy. Jewish midwives might also have supplied Christian women with the sponges approved as birth control devices by the Jewish community. Although most monogamous households probably contained no more than two or three children, aristocratic Christian, polygamous Muslim, and some Jewish families could be quite large. Among the Christian aristocracy, healthy women might experience double-digit pregnancies with many of the infants surviving at least into their teenage years. Eleanor of Aquitaine had a total of 10 surviving children: 2 with her first husband, King Charles VII of France, and 8 with her second, King Henry II of England. William and Isabella Marshal, the earl and countess of Pembroke, had 10 children—5 boys and 5 girls—in their 28 year marriage, all of whom survived to adulthood. One of their daughters, Sibyl, who married William de Ferrers earl of Derby, had seven children, all girls. When Sibyl died, William married again and went on to have at least one more child, Robert, who inherited the earldom. The Islamic rulers who practiced polygamy on a grand scale probably had many children, even if their wives individually did not necessarily produce a large number of progeny. In fact, most of the medieval caliphs and amirs had few wives—the famous Haroun al-Rashid had only one, the poet and intellectual Zubayda—but probably hundreds of female sex-slaves and concubines, whose children were included in the royal household. Most of these children are invisible to the historian. Haroun, himself the son of a former sex-slave al-Khayzuran and the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi, might have had thousands of female sexual partners (as is rumored in the legends about him), but only two of his sons are mentioned in most sources: his eldest, al-Ma’mun, who was born of a slave,

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and his only legitimate son, al-Amin, born of the marriage of Haroun and Zubayda. Historians differ in their analysis of family size in Jewish communities in the Middle Ages. In western Europe, bans against polygamy, the use of birth control, and restrictions on the size of Jewish households because of the limited space in which the communities dwelled, might have combined to limit family size. In the Rhineland and France, Jewish families seem to have averaged around two or three children: numbers more or less identical to Christian families. In the Mediterranean, family sizes might have been larger, since some historians mention families with as many as 10 children as being not uncommon.2 The documents of the Cairo geniza suggest that the average Jewish family in Muslim-controlled Egypt included four or five children; that is, twice the number found among German-Jewish or French-Jewish families. There is no way to verify such numbers and the families of Middle Eastern Jews might indeed have been even larger, since girls seem to have been undercounted in the geniza records.3 Infants and Toddlers Infancy was a risky period: disease, infant diarrhea, and accidents seem to have been so common as to make the odds of surviving the first year roughly 50/50. This is true of the children of the elites as much as of the common classes, since all experienced the lack of medical knowledge that could have made infancy a more secure period. Statistics about survival are nonexistent for any medieval culture, but coroner’s inquests and other kinds of records for western Europe suggest that the first five years of a child’s life were the most dangerous. Once born, infants were swaddled—they were wrapped tightly in cloth bands so that their limbs did not move around—because it was thought that they needed that level of support to survive, at least for the first few months. Mothers or wet nurses were responsible for their feeding and infants were often nursed for two years or more. If the mother died in childbirth and a wet nurse could not be found, the infant was almost guaranteed to die. Although midwives and caretakers might attempt to save the baby by dripping cow’s or sheep’s milk, usually diluted with water, from a twisted rag or a nursing horn into the baby’s mouth, human infants simply cannot digest animal milk efficiently. Among the elites, wet nurses were quite common. Indeed, church officials often sermonized that noblewomen were failing in their responsibilities to their children by hiring wet nurses, because it was thought that personality traits were literally absorbed through the mother’s milk, and that a peasant woman who nursed a noble infant was thereby imparting the values of a peasant in the act of nursing. The mother of three famous leaders of the First Crusade, Ida of Boulogne, was, according to legend, so determined that

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her children would be nursed only by her that, when she discovered that a wet nurse had fed her infant son to stop him from crying, Countess Ida forced the baby to vomit the “alien” milk so that she could nurse him herself.4 Nursing often prevented ovulation in the mother, especially when the mother’s diet was low in protein and nutrients, so this was a good reason for mothers to nurse their children as long as possible. This could be one reason why noblewomen are often noted as having many pregnancies: they did not nurse, so their fertility was not affected. Children were often put in charge of overseeing their younger siblings. It was not uncommon for a six-year-old to be given the task of caring for an infant. Mothers were usually engaged in work that made it difficult to keep an eye on their toddlers, whether it was work in the kitchen garden, in the artisan’s workshop, or maintenance of the manor. As can be imagined, having such young children in charge could result in terrible accidents befalling their infant charges, especially if they were mobile: falling into the kitchen fire, overturning the soup cauldron, and other kinds of incidents are mentioned frequently in coroner’s reports. For example, a five-year old boy was babysitting his one-year old brother, who died when his cradle caught fire.5 Once an infant was considered able to sit up, crawl, and stand the swaddling was removed and she or he was able to move around more freely. Toddlers continued to nurse, but solid food was introduced slowly into the diet: grains boiled into a kind of porridge was a common food for adults as well as children, and this was seen as appropriate for babies slowly being weaned from their mothers’ or nurses’ milk. Animal milk mixed with water and bread was also a common supplement to breast milk. The period between ages two and five were probably not only the most dangerous, but also the most carefree. Toddlers were treated like children: they engaged in play; they had few responsibilities; and they were probably indulged more than older children. This is also probably the period of time in which children bonded with their parents, especially their mothers. The kinds of play in which young children engaged mimicked the activities of their parents. Little girls played at cooking or might try to help their mothers by trying to do tasks such as drawing water from the communal well. Boys played at fighting or the tasks engaged in by their fathers, such as grinding grain, blacksmithing, or cutting wood. Historians have debated a great deal about the degree to which parents had emotional connections to their young children. In 1960, the French sociologist, Philippe Ariès, wrote a book entitled Centuries of Childhood in which he theorized that parents in the historical past did not feel true affection for their young children, and that instead they exploited them heartlessly. According to Ariès and his followers, parents did not begin to feel genuine (as determined by modern attitudes) love for their children until the nineteenth century.6 Historians ever since have been disputing

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his conclusions, and convincingly. Although medieval parents might not have had a great deal of time to spend with their children and they might have been burdened with many other responsibilities, sources demonstrate that true affection and parental concern existed and that infants and toddlers were mourned when they died. Indeed, chronicles mention the excesses of grief experienced by noble and royal parents whose young children died. When Henry III of England and his wife, Eleanor of Provence, lost their three-year-old daughter Katherine, Queen Eleanor was criticized for the degree to which she mourned and for her very public displays of grief. The chronicler Matthew Paris, who had little love for either Henry III or his queen, was scathing about Eleanor’s so-called excessive grief, not just because her distress had made her ill, but also because he considered Katherine, who might have been disabled in some way, to be an inappropriate object for such a degree of sadness, describing her as “dumb [that is, unable to speak] and fit for nothing, though possessing great beauty [or prettiness].”7 Certain religious and culturally traditional ceremonies welcomed infants into the community of their families, often very near the moment of their birth. Christian babies, born alive or dead, were supposed to be baptized as soon as possible following the birth, and certainly within the first year. This ritual was so important to Christian culture that midwives were given permission to baptize newborns if they were born dead or if it was thought that they would not survive long enough for a priest to perform the ceremony. In Byzantine culture, the naming of the newborn, which also designated the infant’s patron saint, was an important ritual that included a priestly blessing. Similar rituals, overseen by an imam, occurred in some Muslim regions of the Mediterranean. In Jewish culture, the circumcision of boy babies in a ceremony known as a bris was supposed to be carried out by the rabbi within eight days of the baby’s birth. Similar ceremonies in the Islamic community occurred when children were older, and so will be discussed in the next section. Childhood: Ages 5 to 12 Once past the dangerous period of infancy and toddler-hood, children began to be given more responsibility and to be more independent. Peasant children were expected to work in some capacity from about the age of five. They took care of younger children, helped in home maintenance and in the kitchen garden, helped in the agricultural labor, in the dairy, and with other kinds of chores. Elite children might have had fewer chores to perform, but they had responsibilities nonetheless. Their education began as early as the age of five, with both boys and girls receiving instruction from tutors, boys being trained in the arts of war, and girls in skills considered appropriate for females: weaving, tapestry, cooking, embroidery. It is likely that, among the elite classes, both boys and girls

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were taught to read the language they spoke. In areas, such as Western Europe, where the vernacular language—English, German, Italian, and so forth—was not in common use internationally, elite children also learned French, which was used by many people as an international language. European boys who demonstrated a facility for languages and an interest in furthering their education also learned Latin, especially those elite males who were destined for careers in the church. In the Byzantine Empire, where Greek was both the vernacular and the intellectual language, the western tension between Latin, the language of the church, and the many spoken languages of Europe did not exist. Similarly, although a number of non-Arabic dialects were spoken throughout the Islamic world, such as Turkish by the Seljuks and Ottomans, Coptic among the Egyptians, and Aramaic and Syriac in Syria and the Lebanon, most people became conversant in Arabic because of religious requirements as well as commercial, intellectual, and political traditions and norms. European Jewish children, who commonly spoke Yiddish (a polyglot language whose structure was Hebrew, but which contained German and Slavic vocabulary) among themselves, learned Hebrew and also picked up the vernacular of whatever country or region in which they lived. Jews living in the Islamic portions of the medieval world spoke Arabic as their everyday tongue, so they had to undertake formal instruction in Hebrew as well. In the Muslim world, education of boys was considered essential and all boys were schooled in the Quran. Girls were not often given opportunities to become literate, but they were expected to memorize Quranic verses nevertheless. Their education was primarily in domestic skills. A similar emphasis on the education of males existed in both Jewish and Byzantine cultures, with all of these societies considering the age of seven to be more or less the optimum age for beginning a child’s education. Descriptions of the educational experiences of young children appear in some medieval sources. The Anglo-Saxon King Alfred of Wessex and his older brothers had a tutor who resided with the royal household. According to a popular story told by his official biographer, Asser, Alfred’s mother challenged the boys to learn the contents of a book of English poetry. Alfred manipulated the contest by grabbing the book and taking it to his tutor, who then taught him the poems so that he could recite them to his mother.8 The mother of theologian and historian Guibert, abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, engaged a tutor for him and oversaw his education quite closely.9 Although she does not describe the process of her education, Anna the daughter of Emperor Alexios Komnenos, clearly received an unusually thorough academic education, possibly at the urging of her grandmother Anna Dalassena, since she became Alexios’s official historian and biographer. Sometimes even very young children were sent away for their schooling. Bede, the famous eighth-century Anglo-Saxon theologian and historians, was dedicated to the monastery of Monkswearmouth when he

could be dangerous for them as well. In cities that organized municipal schools. such training necessitated leaving home. and mercantile trades. and entry into domestic service were all initiated sometime between the ages of 7 and 12. coroners’ reports. Jewish communities in the Middle Ages maintained their own schools for young Jewish men. banking. It is possible that boys injured themselves and each other in greater numbers than girls when engaged in play. and they were sometimes sent to live with their intended husband’s family.Children and the Family
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was only six or seven years old. Greek—to
. Although the dedication of very small children to monastic life was discouraged in the High Middle Ages. Latin. and their interests were not all that different from those of children today. Even though the activities of boys and girls from the age of five were probably dominated by work and schooling. Bede’s experience was not radically different from boys sent to monasteries—and from girls such as Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and Hildegard of Bingen to convents—for their education. and Midrash. there was still time to play. Mishnah. such as cooking. tell us how they lived as well. but people did send their sons away to school. but it was possible for girls to become betrothed as early as the age of six (although they could not be forced to marry and they could reject the betrothal once they reached the age of consent). Among the aristocracy in Europe. English. Children of lower social status also began their education around the age of seven. In medieval cities. and played games. usually run by the community’s rabbi. engaged in mock battles (injuring each other in the process). The schools of Damascus and Constantinople were famous and people who could afford to have their sons educated in the best schools tried to take advantage of this privilege. apprenticeships in manufacturing and trade guilds began at about ages 7 to 10. the fostering of young men from other families. middle-class and elite boys were sent to school for a few years before embarking on their apprenticeships in the notarial. so apprenticeships started early. Peasant children seem to have had reasonable opportunities for play. Other guilds did not require formal education. by describing the ways in which children tended to die. although the tasks that girls were expected to perform. the beginning of formal education. The other medieval cultures were less likely to send their children away from home for fostering in another’s household. They climbed trees (and fell out of them). caught fish (and fell into creeks and ponds). French. Girls were not fostered in the same way. In many cases. German. so the danger of injury in rough play was fairly high. was an important part of the social culture. such as Florence in the thirteenth century. Apprenticeship. Again. where they learned Hebrew and studied both Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) and the interpretive texts known as Talmud. and the sending of one’s own male children to be fostered. Jewish boys were also educated in other languages—Arabic. It seems that children were not necessarily closely supervised.

why Joan of Arc. cleaning. Baghdad. Boys. and even the physical environment in which they were raised. choices of profession. gender identification became increasingly critical as children aged. This could involve everything from military training for the elites to agriculture and skilled manual labor such as blacksmithing or milling for the peasantry. Girls. but also for domestic service and jobs in the textile trades. performed by a rabbi on a newborn boy. A significant rite of passage for Muslim boys between ages 7 and 12 was circumcision. Islamic circumcision celebrated a boy’s entrance into puberty. the
. especially about the possibility of girls disguising themselves as boys. The period of childhood between 5 and 12 was also the period when sexual separation began to have a significant effect on the lives of medieval boys and girls. on the other hand. rabbis. weaving. This is likely to have been one of the principal reasons why medieval people dressed their children in clothes that mimicked adult dress. spinning. unless they were destined for professions in religion as priests. needlework. educational opportunities. Indeed. Girls’ training in the domestic arts of cooking. or Mecca. sometimes. Medieval people exhibited a profound anxiety about gender identity. Unlike the Jewish bris. A public celebration involving the whole family. monks. or imams. This was more or less the case even for peasant families. Medieval society—no matter the region or culture— was profoundly concerned with highlighting differences between males and females. Before puberty. for instance. One of the main reasons. Among all medieval societies. paranoia among religious leaders about females supposedly infecting male spaces and competing intellectually and physically with men. the transmission of Classical Greek texts such as those by Aristotle to the West came about because of Jewish scholars in Muslim Spain translating Arabic translations of these classics into Latin. a girl of only 16. and household management prepared them not only for marriage. where the radical separation of environments that could occur among the wealthy classes was impossible to maintain. Education in Islamic society was focused almost entirely on memorizing the Quran.158
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facilitate their business in international trade. were discouraged from leaving the house. it can be difficult to distinguish sexual difference when children are clothed in similar attire and their hair is of similar lengths. Some cultural rites of passage could take this anxiety about gender identity to extremes. Most Muslim boys were educated in local schools beginning at age seven. Cairo. were discouraged from remaining indoors and much of their training occurred outside the house. was charged with heresy is because she insisted on wearing male clothing. a process that took about two years. This was expressed for children in the form of clothing. This anxiety was connected significantly to concerns about female chastity and. Graduation was celebrated by the whole community and the most gifted boys could go on to advanced education curricula in one of the great centers of learning in Damascus.

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circumcision of boys was a time of joyous anticipation, one that initiated Muslim boys into the religious and social community. A very different series of events occurred in the context of a practice known euphemistically as female circumcision, but more accurately termed female genital mutilation. Unlike male circumcision, this was (and is) not practiced by all Muslim communities. Turks, for instance, did not engage in this practice, but most Islamic societies from Syria to North Africa, including Egypt and Sudan, did—and many continue to do so today. The procedure was performed by female practitioners when a girl was around 7 to 10 years old. Unlike male circumcision, female genital mutilation was neither celebrated publicly nor even acknowledged publicly. As a result, the motive behind the practice is unclear, although it is well known that it predated the adoption of Islam by the communities that continue to practice this procedure. The control of female sexuality does, however, seem to be the major motive behind the practice, since many medieval Islamic sources claim that women upon whom this mutilation was not practiced were dangerously sexually adventurous.10 This emphasis on gender identification that was so important to western Christian and Islamic culture was made much more complicated in the Byzantine Empire because of the use of eunuchs to fill prominent administrative positions in both the imperial government and in the Byzantine Church. Although originally the boys subjected to castration for this purpose were predominantly non-Roman slaves, by the time of the Komnenan dynasty (the eleventh century), Byzantine families—even sometimes aristocratic ones—were known to secure professional careers for their young sons by having them castrated. Eunuchs occupied important positions in the Byzantine government; there are even examples of eunuchs who became generals in the imperial army, although this was very rare indeed. Their political importance could even give prominent eunuchs the opportunity to manipulate their office to secure members of the imperial family as partners for their own brothers and sisters. In addition, although early Christianity forbade eunuchs from becoming priests, by the middle Byzantine period this restriction was no longer an issue and eunuchs began to make up a small but politically and intellectually significant core of church administrators. Indeed, some of the most important bishops of the Komnenan period were eunuchs, men who were singled out for being especially pious and spiritual in their professional lives. This kind of decision was a deliberate choice on the part of the parents, but not necessarily on the part of the child: it is doubtful that boys would have undergone a surgical procedure that was not only dangerous—records suggest that a huge number of young boys died in the process of being castrated—but also barred them from a normal life of marriage and family. Nevertheless, parents with intellectually talented younger sons might have seen this path as attractive for the future of not only their children, but also the influence of the family.11 Islamic culture

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also used eunuchs in administration and as guards over harems, but these were always slaves subjected against their will to being castrated. Since the period between ages 5 and 12 could be considered on a broad scale a period in which apprenticeships of all kinds—not only in manufacturing among the urban classes, but also training in clerical careers, in military skills, and in domestic management among all levels of medieval society—occurred, it is not surprising that betrothals were also often arranged for children in this period of their development. Parents were very concerned about the future welfare of their children, and marrying them well was one of the best ways medieval parents could hope to guarantee a comfortable life as adults. The age of consent and marriage differed among all the different medieval cultures, and marriage practices could be radically different even within specific cultures depending on local custom and social status, but it was not uncommon for the children of elites—especially girls—to be betrothed or even married by the age of 12. This was also the case for most Jewish and Muslim women, even those of lower social and economic status. The marriage choices for medieval children, and the criteria parents used to come up with the best candidates, were based not on love in our conventional sense of the term, but on issues such as security, wealth, political influence, and physical proximity of land. As discussed recently by Martha Howell, the “companionate marriage” was an ideal model, but the achieving of such a marriage, one based on love and respect and a sense of partnership, could be accomplished only after other more practical issues were sorted out.12 Parents were not always the people involved in making these choices. Among the highest levels of the aristocracy, the king had a say in the marriages of their children, especially if their father was, or parents were, dead. A good example of this is the betrothal and marriage of two sisters, cousins of Henry III of England’s queen, Eleanor of Provence, to two young heirs to important lordships in the north of England, Edmund de Lacy future lord of Pontefract and earl of Lincoln, who married the elder sister, Alice of Saluzzo, and John de Vescy future lord of Alnwick (and also a vassal of the Lacy lords of Pontefract), who married Agnes of Saluzzo, Alice’s younger sister. The king and queen clearly had a hand in these marriages, even though the mothers of the children involved (the chronicler Matthew Paris describes the betrothals taking place when the children were “very young”) were still very much alive. Both Edmund de Lacy and John de Vescy had been fostered in the royal household, and were raised with the royal couple’s own children; their closeness to Henry and Eleanor’s sons Edward and Edmund undoubtedly contributed to the decision to marry them to the Savoyard cousins of the queen, thus linking them even more with the interests of the royal family. Since they were both significant heirs and officially wards of the crown, their mothers had little say in whom the two boys married. This does not mean, however, that

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Margaret de Lacy, Edmund’s mother, and Agnes de Vescy, John’s mother, were completely uninvolved in this decision-making or that they opposed the marriages. Margaret was an intimate of the queen, and both she and Agnes had ties to the court through their magnate status. Margaret was countess of Lincoln in her own right and dowager countess of Pembroke, while Agnes was one of the heirs of the earldom of Pembroke through her mother, Sibyl la Marshal.13 The very early age at marriage of elite western Christian and most Jewish, Muslim, and Byzantine girls put an abrupt end to childhood for them. By the time they were 13—and often years before—girls from these cultures were considered marriageable women and more often than not either wed or betrothed. Even though young girls just reaching puberty in these cultures knew that they were destined or at least likely to be wed by age 12, no amount of preparation could prepare them psychologically for the experience, especially since very often their husbands were bound to be closer in age to their mothers than themselves. The experiences of Eleanor of Castile in the negotiations and enactment of her marriage to the Lord Edward, son and heir of Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, could provide a window on the difficulties girls experienced when they married so young. Eleanor was born late in 1241 and probably had not even reached the age of 12 when she became betrothed to Prince Edward, who was only two years older. Their wedding was performed about a year later, in October 1254, and consummated immediately, since both had reached the legal age of consent. Eleanor seems to have gotten pregnant almost immediately, but gave birth prematurely seven months later: the baby died. She would not give birth to a surviving child for another five years.14 Her inexperience and physical immaturity, and the public anxiety over her childlessness, must have made those years very stressful for the young princess. During these years, however, she developed a good relationship with her mother-in-law, Queen Eleanor, and her relationship with Edward, whom she had met for the first time literally days before they consummated their union, blossomed. Her experiences, as well as those of her mother-in-law, who was also married at 12 years of age, might indeed have been the impetus for them both to argue strenuously against the betrothal and marriage of Eleanor’s and Edward’s daughter in 1282, when she was only 13. The two queens were successful: the marriage negotiations were delayed.15 Eleanor of Castile’s experiences might have been most typical for girls of European royalty, but they resonate far beyond that exalted social level. Eleven- or 12-year old girls who were married to men they did not know well, even if they were boys close to them in age, must have felt the same kinds of anxiety Eleanor experienced. Unfortunately for Jewish, Byzantine, and Muslim girls generally, social customs outweighed their own possibly terrifying experiences. Unlike the two

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Eleanors, who convinced their son and husband respectively, that 13 was too young an age to marry, the daughters of most child-brides underwent the same abrupt transition from girlhood to adulthood as their mothers. Adolescence: Ages 13 to 21 Medieval people did not necessarily recognize the years between youth and adulthood (as we would recognize it) as a unique developmental period, although the Latin term adolescens was used to refer to young men of this age and this period was to some extent considered to be a separate and unique life stage in western Christian society. Nevertheless, by the age of 13, most medieval people were considered to be more or less adults. The onset of puberty effectively rendered them capable of assuming adult responsibilities. Indeed, the legal age of marriage for girls in Christian Europe was between 12 and 14 and for boys, between 18 and 20. Girls this young were not only married, but could also take control of property they inherited, something boys were not able to do until they had reached their majority at 21. Ironically, boy kings could theoretically dismiss their guardians and take control from the regency council, which was usually appointed according to the will of the late king, once they had reached the age of 14 as well. This is essentially what King Edward III did when he exiled his mother, who had been acting as regent, and executed Roger de Mortimer earl of March, once he had reached the age of 14 in 1330. Thus a king could enter into his inheritance and assume adulthood at the same time as girls but much earlier than other boys. In the other medieval cultures, adulthood was also defined, in varying degrees, by puberty for both boys and girls. Marriages occurred very early, even if the married couple did not cohabit until later, as sometimes occurred in Jewish communities. Girls received their inheritances in anticipation of marriage, in the form of dowries. It was not unheard-of for a girl to be a widow before she reached her eighteenth birthday. This in fact happened to Eleanor Plantagenet, the sister of King Henry III of England, who was married at 12 to William II le Marshal (he was considerably older) and was widowed by the time she was 16. For most boys and many girls in the Middle Ages, however, the period we think of as adolescence was an initiation into adult life, rather than a full-blown leap. This period of time focused on intensive education and activity for both boys and girls. In medieval cities, apprentices moved from that low status to the status of journeyman (where many of them remained for their entire lives) usually between the ages of 16 and 21. Master status was much harder to achieve and few journeymen were able to gain that title. Among the elites, boys could be knighted at the age of 16; those destined for a career in the church were sent to university for advanced education sometime around the age of 14, and could begin the

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ordination process by becoming acolytes at around the same time. Among peasants, boys could begin to take on not just more work in the fields, but also professional training by the time they were 14 or 15. Pubescent boys lived a kind of every-boy-for-himself existence in medieval Europe, especially those who were apprentices, workers, or university students in the cities of the period. Freed from the restrictions of parental oversight, these young men were notoriously rowdy troublemakers: medieval records detail all kinds of mayhem perpetrated by roving bands of young men. In medieval Rousillon, gangs of teenage boys and young men kidnapped respectable women from their houses and raped them, sometimes keeping them captive for days on end. These women were then dumped at one of the city’s brothels since their status as respectable was destroyed by the actions of these young thugs.16 Riots initiated by apprentices and young journeymen were common, especially during holidays such as Carnival, known in the United States as Mardi Gras.17 In university towns, such as Paris and Oxford, not only did hordes of drunken students rove the streets looking for trouble, but town-gown disturbances were common enough to be a source of tremendous anxiety for both city and university officials. The medieval historian and theologian Jacques de Vitry wrote scathingly about the behavior of students in Paris.
Almost all the students at Paris, foreigners and natives, wanted to do absolutely nothing except learn or hear something new. Some studied merely to acquire knowledge, which is curiosity; others to acquire fame, which is vanity; others still for the sake of gain, which is cupidity and the vice of simony. Very few studied for their own edification, or that of others. They wrangled and disputed not merely about the various sects or about some discussions; but the differences between the countries also caused dissensions, hatreds and virulent animosities among them and they impudently uttered all kinds of affronts and insults against one another. They affirmed that the English were drunkards and had tails; the sons of France proud, effeminate and carefully adorned like women. They said that the Germans were furious and obscene at their feasts; the Normans, vain and boastful; the Poitevins, traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; the inhabitants of Brabant, men of blood, incendiaries, brigands and ravishers; the Flemish, fickle, prodigal, gluttonous, yielding as butter, and slothful. After such insults from words they often came to blows.18

Students were, at the end of the day, not all that different in the Middle Ages from those attending college and university today. They tended to spend their money unwisely and were forced to beg parents to pay

marriages tended to occur when the parties were older. and the confinement of them to the house. often to the dismay and anger of their parents. and whoring in which young aristocratic men engaged. In the city-states of high medieval Italy. Parents in many parts of the medieval world did make some effort to match their daughters to men who were not only of the same social class. occupied parental energies. to a certain extent. Nevertheless. and so on. occupied a great deal of time for daughters in elite families. and they had favorite professors into whose classes they crowded. which was made up significantly of young men out for a good time. Juliet is being introduced to the adult community for the first time during her betrothal party—at the age of 13—and every move she makes is controlled by her zealously protective mother and her notso-zealous nurse. In the story of Romeo and Juliet. for daughters destined to enter convents or nunneries. Edward prince of Wales. but also somewhat close in age. floor and wall coverings. it was customary for there to be a more radical difference in age between bride and groom. furniture. The preservation of a girl’s virginity became a very serious issue for families of the middle classes and above and so control of their activities. while less favored teachers endured inattentive students and empty classrooms. Girls aged 14 often went into domestic service or
. Among the lower classes.164
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their bills. King Edward I had a miserable relationship with his teenage son. The preparation of a trousseau. they drank too much beer and wine. 14. A paternalistic husband could easily become controlling and dismissive. in large part because Prince Edward rebelled against his strict father’s insistence that he give up some of his more unsavory friends. The description of Prince Hal and his behavior in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV was not unfamiliar to the Elizabethan audience. the goods that a girl would bring to her marriage that comprised not only her personal clothing but also things like bedding. The expectations for girls were so different that the onset of puberty had a very different significance for them. for instance. Medieval chronicles describe the hard drinking. whose behavior was perhaps more paternal than that of a younger man.and 15-year-old girls often married men in their thirties. dicing. the difference in age and experience operated as a real bar to intellectual and social development for young women whose inexperience in the world was interpreted as ignorance. but this did not mean that girls experienced a more gradual transition from childhood to adulthood in this circumstance. often well over the age of 18. Such preparations also occurred. however. This radical disparity between the ages of men and women could be beneficial in some ways: young and immature girls might be better protected by older men. for example. It was not unusual for there to be only a few years separating brides and grooms among the elites in northern and western Europe. which they generally did before the age of 16. In other parts of Europe. for example.

on the other hand. Certainly most young women were expected to marry. their activities and opportunities were more restricted than they were as children. or one that could serve as preparation for marriage. but not a particularly respectable one. which offered quite a few opportunities for elite girls to reject marriage and to become nuns. like those in Christian cultures. The Byzantine world occupied a kind of middle ground between the Muslim and western Christian worlds. there was a more or less constant stream of young women moving in and out of the labor force who used both domestic service and jobs in textile and lace manufacture as transitional stages from childhood to marriage. There were no religious houses where girls could become nuns dedicated to chastity and education. if anything. in much the same way as it was in Muslim culture: elite women were waited on by female servants and eunuchs and contact with unrelated males was actively discouraged. In addition. more or less automatically conferred on them a questionable status as girls of possibly low morals. but they also learned and expanded on skills they needed in order to run a household of their own. they gained experience in the world through travel and trade. from the military to more intellectual pursuits such as physician or imam. continued their education during their adolescent years. the physical isolation of elite women was emphasized. Instead. Domestic service was an option. Girls who attained puberty were subjected to veiling and. they worked the family farm and planned on inheritance of land to amass the funds necessary to marry. They entered into different professions. as the life of Anna Komnene attests. Not only did they earn wages that they could save toward the nest egg necessary in order to get married. This meant that the typical lot of young pubescent women. whose public labor was vital to the survival of the family and who were not able to quibble about the respectability of girls needing to work in the public marketplace. Young men. Unlike the west. Domestic service was a pathway to independence for peasant girls. the possibility of polygamy altered dramatically the life stages of children. It was rare for young women to remain in service for their entire lives. The contrast between the lives of young men and young women was thereby emphasized by the culture.Children and the Family
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became apprenticed to female-centered workshops where textiles and lace were produced. and perhaps return to service if widowed. they would leave to marry. experienced a profound change in their independence and their ability to achieve goals other than marriage. Girls. Certainly young women of elite status were educated by tutors. This would
. In the Muslim world. the Byzantine east had fewer female monastic institutions and seem to have been more suspicious of the idea of women operating in an institution that was not under direct male control. Indeed. as the status of women became bound up fundamentally on the maintenance of their virginity before marriage and their chastity after marriage.

It is not clear whether those kinds of interventions actually moderated the behavior of the abuser. Ironically. Sources from medieval London describe the use of children as prostitutes.
. were considered the property of their parents in many otherwise civilized countries until the mid-twentieth century. if a child’s guardian was seen to be too restrictive or abusive. often married men considerably older than they. which could prompt outsiders to intervene. someone in authority might step in. whose public lives became increasingly emphasized. Concerns about the exploitation of children are a remarkably recent phenomenon: legislation limiting child labor began to be passed only within the last 150 years. Abuse of and Violence against Children Just as discussed with respect to husbands and wives. as well. The sexual exploitation of children was undoubtedly very high. the culture of the medieval world considered corporal punishment a teaching tool. the sexual exploitation of children was not even considered an issue until very recently. a young boy was dressed as a girl to be used as a prostitute and this boy grew up to be a transvestite who was very popular among the community of men (apparently including many priests and friars) who frequented prostitutes in medieval London. Moreover. Sources mention occasions of violence against children.166
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have been in marked contrast to the opportunities that opened for young men in the Byzantine world. Children. In addition. This attitude certainly affected the lives of children in the Middle Ages. such as Guibert of Nogent’s description of his mother’s distress when she discovered that his tutor was beating him. Occasionally. Parents who had apprenticed their children to masters for the purpose of training also were concerned sometimes about the level of abuse to which their children were subjected and could complain. Certainly. Chances to attain higher education. Guibert chastises his mother for wanting to fire the tutor: he felt that the beatings were beneficial to his development as a scholar. where the onset of puberty would have opened doors both professional and social. and to gain public political influence were possible for male teenagers. aged 12 to 15. there is no evidence that outsiders considered it appropriate to do so in the beating of children. like medieval Italy. the age disparity between brides and grooms tended to mean that very young brides. casual violence directed against children was probably so common in the Middle Ages as not to be worth mentioning in any sources. to enter into professions that were of high status. In one infamous case. even more than women. Unlike episodes of extreme violence of husbands directed against wives.19 The sexual abuse of girls in domestic service was probably very high. so childhood for virtually every child must have been full of physical violence ranging from the mild to the extreme.

at least for girls. the result of the birthing process. Moreover. discussed in chapter 7. There was a great deal of discussion about trying to prevent girls married before age 12 from being sexually abused. Conclusion The lifecycles of children in the medieval world thus shared elements we would find familiar today: infancy and childhood were periods where families nurtured and protected their children. the lives of boys then and now were more similar than the lives of girls. Unfortunately. however. modern parents would no doubt be appalled by some of the dangerous behavior countenanced by medieval parents. to adulthood. The increasing restrictions on girls as they moved through their life stages is in sharp contrast to the increasing independence modern-day girls experience as they go from childhood. at least those that resulted in death. In the Byzantine Empire. parents sought the best opportunities for their children. On the other hand. Although not necessarily expressed in the ways we do today. the misbehavior of college students today probably cannot hold a candle to the kinds of mayhem thought up by medieval university students. She was unable
. The Carolingian noblewoman Dhuoda’s tragic life. it was usually designed as a preventive measure to discourage women from controlling their fertility. gave them opportunities for both play and learning. Indeed.20 It is not clear whether these concerns and attempts to control what was likely an endemic problem improved the situation. any death of any kind required a coroner’s inquest be conducted so if a child died. the reasons for that death were revealed in at least some cases. even in some cases to the point of having young sons castrated in order to guarantee their future professional success. All the medieval political systems had public and legal systems that tried to control the abuse of children. it might seem bizarre to discuss the sexual exploitation of children. is a good example of such a sacrifice. Nevertheless. What cannot be questioned is the devotion of parents with regard to their children. it seems the authorities actively tried to control both this problem and the related problems of child prostitution and incest. In England. In many ways. an investigation usually took place to determine whether the death was accidental. this was an issue of some concern among the religious leadership of both Christian and Judaic cultures. to adolescence. or a case of infanticide or abortion. This investigation was not so much for the protection of children. Parents made enormous sacrifices for their children. and gradually granted them more and more independence as they grew toward adulthood. child prostitution and the sexual exploitation of children—probably both girls and boys—was and continues to be a persistent problem throughout the world to this day.Children and the Family
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In a civilization where the age of marriage and puberty coincided. If a baby was stillborn or a miscarriage occurred.

to them with instructions meant to guide their proper development as honorable young men.168
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to be directly involved in her children’s lives because of her husband’s abusive treatment of her. A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume. 20–124. The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University Press.
. This is discussed in depth—including the problems with the story—by David Horspool. ed. An excellent discussion of this controversial issue is Jonathan P. Goitein. J. female genital mutilation removes all the outer genitalia. D. for their part. They were timid and adventurous. 9. 6. Berkey. 1998). See S. This is discussed by P. Children. Perhaps unsurprisingly. 1996). 2. 1974). English History. no. Philippe Ariès. 101–81 and reprinted in Medieval Families: Perspectives on Marriage. 10. 1854. especially 36–38. King Alfred: Burnt Cakes and Other Legends (Cambridge. Matthew Paris. willing to accept strict controls on their behavior and chafing at such restrictions. Daily Life of the Jews in the Middle Ages (Westport: Greenwood Press. Hanawalt. Lloyd de Mause (New York: Psychohistory Press. and Children (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1999). most recently translated by Paul J. 2005). 3 vols. Notes
1. 1986). celebrated their successes. Unlike male circumcision. which does not have a negative impact on male abilities to experience pleasure in sexual intercourse. 8. See especially 157–159. see Mary Martin McLaughlin.P. For a discussion of nursing. 2004). in the form of a letter. 45. 4. Bohn. 3: 232 and 250. 1 (1996): 19–38. 101–102. trans. reprint New York: AMS Press. Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Archambaut. 7. Biller. obedient and rebellious. MA: Harvard University Press. in particular those organs that provide females with a pleasurable experience. See. were as complex in the Middle Ages as they are today. so she resorted to writing a long treatise. trans. 2006). Giles (London: Henry G. This can be found in Guibert’s autobiography. Such as Norman Roth. 3.A. 1962). 5. 17–36. Jacob Lassner (Berkeley: University of California Press. This is also mentioned by Margaret Howell. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. and ed.” in The History of Childhood. “Survivors and Surrogates: Children and Parents from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries. and delighted at the birth of grandchildren. 409–410. “Birth Control in the West in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries” Past and Present 94 (1982): 3–26. Parents also mourned babies and young children who died. Household. 1968). This is discussed in depth by Barbara A. female genital mutilation is not discussed in any web sites describing Islamic culture for the use of students. A Monk’s Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. rev. “Circumcision Circumscribed: Female Excision and Cultural Accommodation in the Medieval Near East” International Journal of Middle East Studies 28. A. Robert Baldick (New York: Random House.

Medieval Prostitution. “Byzantine Eunuchs: An Overview. 18. http://www. See. and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages. whose marriage to Gilbert de Clare began to be negotiated at around 1282. 168–184. Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. trans.html. known as church eunuchs. Isabel Davis. “Child Sexual Abuse: Historical Cases in the Byzantine Empire (324–1453 a. 17.Children and the Family
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11. Kathryn M. “Life of the Students at Paris” in The Internet Medieval Sourcebook. 16.html. ed. but was not performed until 1290. Marriage. and Politics in England. but Parsons might be referring to Joan of Acre. Mitchell. 1–68.” http://www. Carnival in Romans. for a general overview of this issue. 2003).d.” in Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages. 21. Sanctity.fordham. 1979). known as court eunuchs were characterized in comparison to those with careers in the church.” in Women. 2003). 1995) discusses Eleanor’s youth extensively in chapter 1. Mary Feeney (New York: George Braziller. Lydia G. Miriam Müller. Liz James (London: Routledge. trans. especially. 1988). “The Properties of Marriage in Late Medieval Europe: Commercial Wealth and the Creation of Modern Marriage. 2003). “Reconfiguring the Prophet Daniel: Gender. See Ringrose. John Lascaratos and Effie Poulakou-Rebelakou. See Shaun F. ed. and Sarah Rees Jones (Turnhout: Brepols. 8 (2000): 1085–1090. 13.fordham. 12. Tougher. Portraits of Medieval Women: Marriage. ed. no. 73–106.” in Love. One such episode from the sixteenth century forms the basis for Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s book. with Special Reference to their Creation and Origin. 1997).edu/halsall/source/1395rykener. a Male Cross-Dressing Prostitute.edu/halsall/source/vitry1. 17–62. 1225–1350 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 11–42. John Carmi Parsons. 1395. The name of this daughter does not appear. Martha Howell. 14.)” Child Abuse and Neglect 24. This is discussed by Jacques Rossiaud. Parsons. when Joan was eighteen. Family. 20. and Castration in Byzantium. and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium. Cochrane (New York: Blackwell Publishing. This unique case’s documents can be found at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook: “The Questioning of John Rykener. 19.
. 15. Both women are discussed in Linda E. Ringrose has discussed the different ways in which eunuchs in imperial administration. Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in ThirteenthCentury England (New York: St Martin’s Press. Jacques de Vitry. In addition. Eleanor of Castile. Men.

.

such as bishops. These have been discussed in depth in previous chapters. in all four cultures took pains to analyze and discuss issues of family life that intersected religious observance. Mothers were responsible for basic religious education at virtually all social levels. charges of sexual assault and abduction. It is likely that similar relationships existed in Judaism as well as in Islam. from marriage and divorce. such as mixed marriages. and their own families. elite families in the Christian west and Byzantine east were often connected in significant ways to the institution of the church through patronage of monasteries and nunneries.
. such as theologians and philosophers. religious authorities oversaw many life events that medieval people experienced. but neither religion operated under such an elaborate professional hierarchy. claims of legitimacy. and issues central to inheritance of property. the promotion of family members as professional clergy. whether Christian. Muslim. or Jewish. Professional religious thinkers. In addition. and so on. conversion. conflicts between spouses. The dedication of children to monastic houses made these associations far more intimate and helped to keep families involved in the monastic communities. Finally. was intimately connected to family life. and personal piety conducted within a domestic environment was a fundamental component of religious practice. and political associations between church elites. The more informal structures of those religions make it very difficult to uncover evidence of political and patronage associations connected to the rabbinate or office of imam. the status and roles of men and women in the family.9
Religion and the Family
Medieval religious practice.

Sultan Baybars. and so forth. and some popular stories that circulated in the later Middle Ages. These are just as unreliable as saints’ lives. since it was written for a lay audience and appears in all the vernacular languages of Europe). also contain information about the medieval family and its religiosity. Nevertheless. Salah ad-Din. there are few equivalent texts for medieval Judaism. Similar kinds of texts exist for Islam. although other kinds of sources do exist. legal records. but also about relationships. and so on—were the fodder of professional storytellers who performed these stories for public and private audiences (as they do to this day in the tea and coffee shops of Muslim countries throughout the Middle East).172
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so they will be touched on in this chapter only as they relate to specific religious issues. Zengi. The sources for the history of medieval religion and its relation to the family are quite varied. The stages of Christian life. Christianity and the Medieval Family From its inception. Thus. Christianity was conceived of as a family-based religion. The vast quantity of Christian texts describing the lives of the saints. such as public records. such as the interpretive writings known as Mishnah and Midrash. and for similar reasons. in the sense that a vast quantity of stories about the Prophet and his family and the heroes of medieval Islam—Nur ad-Din. from baptism (during at least the first four hundred years of Christianity. that focus in part on regulating religion in family life. these are not always the most reliable sources for accurate historical information because their purpose was to emphasize the extraordinary piety of the saint. Perhaps unsurprisingly. however. but at adulthood) to death are connected to long-standing family rituals: welcoming new babies into the family unit. using a combination of sources. especially the very popular collection known as The Golden Legend (it was even more popular than the Bible. More neutral sources. chronicles. charters and deeds. In the first century of its existence. The emphasis in these kinds of sources. not to present him or her as a normal person. can help to create a more complete picture of the ways in which medieval families experienced their religious practice. such as those concerning the legendary rabbis Hillel and Akivah. developing public spaces for religious practice only in the second or even third century. the transition from childhood to
. is not to describe family relationships so much as to identify ways in which either families are in conflict or the ways in which they express in physical form—such as through donations to monasteries— their piety. but keeping in mind at all times that their emphasis is not always on providing factually accurate information. Christian rituals were performed almost always within the confines of private homes. are important sources not only for ideas about piety and belief. people received baptism not at birth.

the eating of specific kinds of food. Most Christians in the medieval world did not experience the full range of religious rituals associated with the sacramental system—baptism. but even at the height of such separation. baptism of infants was much more common than the older tradition of using baptism to commemorate the conversion of an adult and his or her entry into the Christian community. According to canon law. although baptisms were celebrations of the family and included virtually all family members. it became a self-consciously family-centered ritual: although usually performed in a church. These were certainly family affairs. a far more family-oriented ritual than it was originally intended to be. the practice of Christianity within the intimate confines of the family and the household was far more typical of the experience of the medieval Christian person. and last rites.Religion and the Family
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adulthood (corresponding with the sacrament of Confirmation). It is unlikely. the one person who was almost always absent was the mother. The separation of Christian ritual and the family unit began to increase only after the promotion of the religion by the emperor Constantine in the fourth century. Indeed. and last rites. communion. women who had just given birth were not permitted even to enter a church until 40 days later—the western tradition of churching comes from this prohibition—and babies were supposed to be baptized within a week of their birth. in the codification of canon law and the presentation of elaborate rituals within the confines of magnificent cathedrals and metropolitan churches. marriage. the practice of processing around the
. then. Members of the lower classes were not expected to confess and take communion more than once a year and their participation in weekly masses might have been inconsistent as well. Nevertheless. Perhaps inevitably. Life Stages and the Christian Family By the seventh century. Ironically. ordination. marriage. celebrating the original domestic focus of early Christianity in a way that was immediately accessible even to those who had little education or understanding of Christian theology. confession and penance. the requirements of the ritual included the commemoration of a second set of parents: the godmother and godfather who promise to oversee the child’s progress as a Christian. including many pre-Christian religious rituals. marriage. in particular baptism. Baptism became. especially at times when agricultural labor required working on Sunday. for example. there are clear indications that medieval Christians used the sacramental rituals to mark specific life stages related to family life. confirmation. the Christian focus of these rites of passage came to be intertwined with other traditional practices of European cultures. and mourning the death of a family member. The use of amulets. that all Christians were routinely confirmed since the rite of confirmation required extensive religious education.

affair. too. yet the village priest often not only participated in such rituals. Marriage has been discussed in other contexts in previous chapters. for instance. The rituals marking the end of life were also shared between the priest and family members and between Christian and non-Christian traditions. The wedding ring also comes from pre-Christian rituals in which the ring is symbolic of the wealth the groom brings to the marriage and his pledge to support his bride materially. As the medieval Christian family grew.174
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village church in particular directions. at least according to Christian ideals. is an interesting mixture of Christian and secular elements: in the English kingdom. Family members would then
. more marriages. the use of crowns came from the pre-Christian Roman practice of crowning the wedding couple with laurel wreaths. more communions. Priests were expected to perform these ceremonies—in the west. something borrowed. the ritual of Last Rites could also include the witnessing of the rest of the family. marriage ceremonies could be seen as the ultimate public expression of family unity. These. Since marriages were. sometimes made of gold but more typically of real leaves. but family members oversaw the preparation of the body for burial (including placing pennies on the eyes of the corpse. something new. The marriage ceremony itself. Priests also presided over the funeral ceremonies. and something blue comes from pre-Christian marriage rituals. a holdover from the time when Christians were baptized on their death beds. Although in many ways an intensely personal moment. the promise of the groom to endow his bride with his worldly goods referred specifically to common law requirements of dower for widows. but might not even have been aware of their pre-Christian associations. were best witnessed by a priest. since these ceremonies also often included oral statements of the dying person that were the legal equivalent of a Last Will and Testament. and more deaths. In Byzantine marriage ceremonies. each child’s birth would of course result in a reconnection of the family with the requirements of Christian ritual: more baptisms. with each element representing hopes for a successful married life of material prosperity and many children. These in some ways mimicked the baptism ceremonies. and so on hearken back to earlier cultural traditions that have nothing to do with Christianity. a holdover from pre-Christian rituals) and the funeral feast that followed. they did so in front of the church door in order to guarantee as many witnesses as possible—but the ritual really was a family. even a community. which were designed to cleanse the soul of sins before death. The ritual of brides wearing something old. but its religious associations and rituals marked an important life stage for medieval Christians. supposed to create a companionate relationship between two adults and was also supposed to produce children. something that had nothing to do with the church’s laws regarding marriage. The priest performed the Last Rites. but also included a final confession. the origin of the modern Christian marriage ceremony.

Christmas is probably the most family-oriented and popular Christian holiday. follows a 40-day period of fasting called Advent. life became much more sober: Christians were not permitted to eat meat during Lent and marriages were not supposed to be performed during this period. which in Hebrew is called Pesach) refers not to the resurrection of Jesus Christ but to an early Germanic fertility goddess whose festival occurred around the time of the Vernal Equinox. the very name “Easter” for the holiday known as Pasche in the rest of Europe (to connect it very specifically with the Jewish holiday of Passover. holiday celebrations center on the family.
. the kinds of celebrations and the favorite holidays were somewhat different. more accurately called the Feast of the Nativity. Easter. however. Indeed. celebrating the Resurrection. it was far less important than the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter. they did so on a rather simpler basis than today. but in the Middle Ages. Even Easter.Religion and the Family
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commemorate their recently dead members with prayers—the wealthy could pay for monks to perform masses for their dead loved ones—and remembrances on All Souls Day (November 2). and so on—originally had nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity and were more or less appropriated by the church and integrated into the religion because there was no way to eradicate such ancient traditions. mistletoe. almost all the rituals and images we associate with major Christian holidays—the Christmas tree. The Christian holiday. paralleled Carnival: a return to normal life after a long period of deprivation. Once Lent began. Christian Holidays In modern times. The day before Ash Wednesday was Carnival (the French term “Mardi Gras” or Fat Tuesday was invented at a later period). Celebrations of this re-awakening of the earth after a long winter often included the eating of eggs and commemoration of unusually fertile animals. . This was a wild celebration of life and indulgence in preparation for the sacrifices of the Lenten period. Although medieval people below the level of wealthy elites did celebrate this great and important feast day. such as rabbits. such as the eating of the paschal lamb (the youngest lambs born in the spring) and the eating of eggs with salt. Today. and whose name was Eostre (pronounced “Ees-ter” like the Christian holiday). Christmas celebrations in the Middle Ages did not have the universal symbolism it has today. Easter eggs. And Carnival was not just a family affair: the entire community engaged in the celebration as a kind of family writ large. Yule logs. the Easter bunny. In addition. was not free of non-Christian associations. These rituals were combined with elements of Jewish Passover rituals. However. This was more or less the case in the Middle Ages as well. holly wreaths.

Byzantine society tended to frown upon the kinds of riotous celebrations popular among western Europeans. The Byzantine family also experienced the 40-day period of fasting called Advent in the West. Families were not supposed to eat meat during periods of fasting. For one thing. not December 25—included a so-called strict fast. For the aristocracy. Indeed. For the peasantry. Germanic polytheism. ivy. so the Christmas feast was an important celebration. the European traditional feast was humbles pie. The drinking to everyone’s health—the word “wassail” comes from the Old English exclamation “waes hael!” (“Be well!”) shouted before downing the tumbler’s contents—was usually performed in the drinking of hot mulled (spiced) wine or the contents of the wassail bowl: a strong mixture of ale. but they were so pervasive that the religious authorities finally gave up and began incorporating them into Christian celebrations by reinterpreting them for Christian consumption. from Christmas Eve to the Feast of Epiphany. and garlands of evergreens in their houses and in the parish churches. families in many parts of northern Europe burned Yule logs for the duration of the 12 days of Christmas. the Puritan Lord Protector of England after the English Civil War in the seventeenth century. Although the church interpreted these symbols in ways that represented Christian theology and history.
. forbade the celebration of the holiday entirely during the 20 years of his reign. In the Middle Ages. the shortest day and longest night of the year. the Byzantine church was somewhat more reluctant than the Latin church to include patently non-Christian elements in religious celebrations. and spices that was heated. all of these elements came from pre-Christian rituals relating to the solstice. not merely abstaining from meat. Christmas celebrations contain so many non-Christian and pre-Christian elements that Oliver Cromwell. Priests and theologians at first tried to limit all of these pre-Christian rituals and elements. honey. a meat pie containing the cheapest parts of the deer or other large animal—the organ meats—that were called the humbles of the animal. the Christmas feast included venison and other game as well as domestic duck and goose (turkey did not appear in Europe until the discovery of the Americas in the sixteenth century). such as Advent and Lent. For another. but also from most food. Byzantine Christmas celebrations were considerably more sober than those in the Latin west. Traditional foods in the west included both pre-Christian elements and elements developed at the time. but they called it the Phillipian Fast. that is. They hung mistletoe.176
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Virtually every popular symbol of Christmas that exists today has its origin in pre-Christian celebrations surrounding the Winter Solstice. The five days before the Feast of the Nativity—which was traditionally celebrated on January 6. ones that dated back to the Druids. and the Greco-Roman god Bacchus. holly branches. Even the date of Christmas— December 25—existed in Roman culture as the birthday of the god Mithras long before Christianity appeared.

Valentine. rather than sit upright as they normally did. This is probably one of the few pre-Christian traditions to persist. rather than on the traditional Roman date of January 1. but also their location. perhaps because the Christian overlay was very thin. propped on an elbow). which actually is supposed to be a celebration of the Feast of St. which is still an important holiday in Mediterranean countries. there was a tension between family traditions. Families experienced all Christian holidays very differently depending upon not only their social class. Indeed. A good example is Valentine’s Day. both before Christmas and after. the celebration of the three Wise Men bringing gifts to the infant Jesus. was careful nonetheless to separate some Christian holidays from pre-Christian versions of them. January 6. suckled the twins when they were abandoned). which often had little to do with Christian theology. The Christmas feast itself included special foods. Family members were supposed to recline while eating this feast. which commemorated the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus (Lupercalia refers to the she-wolf that. Indeed. Traditions in England were radically different from those in Italy and celebrations in Byzantine Constantinople were very different from those in Papal Rome. Valentine’s feast had nothing to do with hearts or secret messages to love-objects. other holidays.Religion and the Family
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especially during daylight hours. was designed to replace a Roman holiday called Lupercalia. St. and preparation for the feast. Other holidays celebrated in the modern world have almost entirely lost their Christian associations. Only much later was Valentine associated with lovers. This is one reason why our modern “New Year’s Day” is buried in the “Twelve Days of Christmas” celebrated in the Middle Ages from December 25 to the Feast of the Epiphany. the Feast of the Annunciation. and the church. One such holiday was the celebration of New Years Day on March 25. were often more important as times of gift-giving: in particular Epiphany. according to legend. and the tradition of exchanging gifts at Christmas was not nearly as significant in the Middle Ages as now. This holiday. which worked
. The church in the Middle Ages. since both Greek and Roman and Jewish feasts were consumed while reclining (usually lying on one’s side. in particular a loaf of white bread decorated with a cross cut into the crust before baking that symbolized the sacrifice of Christ. he is an unusual saint to include in these celebrations since Valentine was a Roman priest (or possibly bishop) from the third century who was martyred by being beheaded. even when it appropriated pre-Christian holidays to serve the interests of Christianity. In addition.1 The figure of Santa Claus comes very late in Christian history. Byzantine Christians also kept in the house a bowl of holy water and a sprig of basil suspended over it and used it to sprinkle holy water throughout the dwelling in order to keep mischievous spirits called “killikantzaroi” at bay. although the Greek Saint Nicholas was associated with Christmas in the Orthodox church as early as the Middle Ages. indeed.

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hard to transform traditional celebrations into religious events often to little avail. Aristocratic families probably celebrated Christian holidays more consistently than poorer families because they were more closely associated with religious professionals, were more likely to attend mass daily rather than occasionally, and felt greater obligations to demonstrate their piety in a public way. Since the Christian calendar contains a feast, saint’s, or fast day for virtually every day of the year, the connection between holidays and religion was much more fundamental to aristocratic lifestyles than they were for the working poor. Depictions of elaborate Christmas celebrations in late medieval France appear in illuminated manuscripts such as The Trés Riches Heures created for Jean, Duke of Berry in the fifteenth century. The frequent attendance at mass by the wealthy classes also connected holidaymaking with Christian practice more directly than for the poorer classes. Since aristocratic households usually contained at least one chaplain, these religious professionals routinely presided over the religious aspects of holidays. In addition, most aristocratic families contained at least one member who had taken religious vows, and their associations with their families probably emphasized the Christian aspects even of those holidays that were only loosely connected to that religion. We have very little information about the ways in which poor families celebrated Christian holidays. It is likely that their celebrations were quite minimal—if they existed at all—simply because poor working families did not have the leisure to indulge in non-communal festivities. Poor people did, however, participate enthusiastically in community-wide holidays such as Carnival and May Day (the latter a profoundly non-Christian holiday that the church tried very hard to eradicate) and in England the urban poor formed the majority of the audience for the so-called Miracle Plays performed during Lent and Holy Week (the period between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday) by traveling players and city guilds. These celebrations were very public, often subsidized by the city guilds and, in villages in rural Europe, by the lords of the manor. They were less about religious observance than about blowing off steam after the hard work of planting in the spring. The Religious Culture and Medieval Christian Families The success of Christianity was possible in large part because of the actions of female converts to the religion, and this reality continued to be important in the furtherance of Christianity throughout the medieval period. Early medieval historians such as Gregory of Tours and Bede depict the conversions of important kings such as Clovis, the first Merovingian ruler of the Franks, and Ethelbert, king of Kent, as being the result of what can only be described as nagging on the part of their

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wives. Although both kings then became true converts as the result of miraculous intervention, at least according to these authors, the impetus for their ultimate conversion to Christianity apparently came from their Christian wives. Religious authors, especially writers of sermons and of manuals of instruction for chaplains and confessors, often focused on the persuasive power wives had over their husbands, not only in encouraging them to convert, but also in encouraging them—both verbally and by example—to behave more charitably: to support monasteries, to give alms to the poor, and to be nicer to their wives and children. This is thought of as a kind of religious instruction, and priests were urged to encourage their wealthy and influential patronesses to act in this way.2 Children were expected to receive their initial instruction in Christian principles from their mothers, who were encouraged not only to teach their children basic Christian principles but also to ensure that they learned the catechism and memorized the Lord’s Prayer (the Pater Noster) and the Marian prayers, such as Hail Mary (Ave Maria), that made up the prayers connected to the use of the rosary, which was invented in the twelfth century as a tool to connect individual religious observance to the new Cult of the Virgin. Children were not necessarily taught to read Latin, but mothers might have read stories from The Golden Legend to their children in the vernacular, and they also hired tutors to instruct their children. Mothers were likely to be important influences on decisions by their children to become priests, monks, and nuns as well. The important twelfth-century theologian Guibert, abbot of Nogentsous-Coucy, considered his mother to be the most important influence on his life, especially in terms of the choices he made about his future. Guibert, in his autobiography entitled His Own Life, describes the circumstances of his birth, which ultimately led him to become a monk. He was the youngest child in a large family, and his mother was not in good health during her pregnancy. Her labor was so extended and painful that Guibert’s father feared for both their lives. In desperation, he “with his friends and kinfolk,” went to a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary and there “they made these vows and laid [an] oblation as a gift upon the altar that, if the child should prove to be a male, he should for God’s sake and his own be [tonsured as] a cleric; but if of the inferior sex [i.e., female], that she should be dedicated to a suitable [religious] profession.”3 Even though the impetus for Guibert’s future profession as a cleric came from his father, he claims that he might never have become a monk and abbot had his father survived, because he was such an attractive and precocious child that his father would have reneged on his vow and trained him for a secular career. His father, however, died when Guibert was only eight months old and his mother became both his parent and guardian. She secured a teacher for the child Guibert, and promised him that he would be free, once his education was complete, to choose between the life of

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a cleric and that of a knight. Guibert insisted that he was determined to become a professional religious, which pleased his mother far more than if he had chosen a secular career: “both [of us] exulted together that I should seem to aspire with all the ambition of my soul towards that life my father had vowed for me.”4 Families also supported religious vocations of daughters as well as sons, and might have had significant influences on such life choices. The amazing career of St. Catherine of Siena began when, over the opposition of her parents, she dedicated herself to virginity at age seven. She eventually won her family over, however, and established a kind of hermit’s cell in their house at the age of 16 with their approval. Catherine joined the Third Order of the Dominicans, which meant that she never lived in a nunnery and was more or less independent of supervision. Instead, she remained in voluntary seclusion in her parental home, practicing such extreme asceticism that it is likely an abbess would have tried to control her self-abusive behavior. Her family, however, apparently supported her decision, and as a result she eventually entered into a public career as an ambassador, negotiator, and one of the architects of the return of the papacy back to Rome from its voluntary exile in Avignon in the late fourteenth century. All her work earned her the title Doctor of the Church—the only medieval woman ever to gain that reward.5 Mothers and fathers were not the only family members to support professional aspirations of children intent on careers in the church. The daughters, grand-daughters, and even a grand-daughter-in-law of Sibyl la Marshal and William de Ferrers took an especial interest in the career of one of their nephews, James de Mohun, who had embarked on a career in the church. The sisters took charge of his education, granting him clerical livings to finance his schooling and upgrading his appointments as he moved up the professional ladder from acolyte to deacon to priest to master. What is most interesting about this particular situation is that James’s mother and father had died before he had begun this educational program, and his maternal aunts and cousins, rather than his paternal relations, acted as his patrons. Clearly they all felt some obligation regarding his future, one that transcended the usual closer family ties binding parents to their children.6 Parents often worked hard to promote children—especially sons—who had embarked on careers in the church. Bogo de Clare was notorious in the thirteenth century for accumulating valuable church grants known as benefices in a process called pluralism that was in fact banned by the church. Many of these offices, livings, and objects of patronage were provided to him by his own mother, Maud (aka Matilda) de Clare, dowager countess of Gloucester and Hertford. She was so enthusiastic about furthering Bogo’s career that she even sued her own eldest son, Gilbert de Clare, over his presentation of a cleric to a parish church she had wanted to award to her younger son.7

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Most parents considered a career in the church to be beneficial not only for their children, but also for the family’s sacral future: having a professional religious in the family guaranteed that the family would gain the boon of intercessory prayers for some time to come. Other parents, who had different plans for their children, were not so enthusiastic. The history of Christina of Markyate, an English local saint who lived in the transitional period immediately following Duke William of Normandy’s conquest of England, can demonstrate the lengths to which parents might go to dissuade their children from choosing a religious vocation. Christina, who had been christened Theodora (a Greek name meaning “gift of God” that would have been very unusual in England at that time), was born into a noble family from Huntingdon, a town in the middle of England. When she was a small child, her parents took her to the monastery of St. Alban’s, where she became fascinated by the lifestyle of the monks and decided to devote herself to God in a life of inviolable virginity. She apparently never told her parents of this decision, however, because when they arranged a betrothal between her and a young nobleman named Burhtred, she refused, saying that she had made a vow of virginity. No amount of pleading, flattery, persuasion, or argument would convince Christina to renege on her vow, so her parents resorted to force: they dragged her off to church and somehow forced her (the author of the saint’s life describing these details claims he did not know how they succeeded) to agree to the betrothal. Once betrothed, however, Christina still refused to go through with the wedding, even though, with the betrothal official, she was considered married in the eyes of the church. Her parents plotted to separate her from her religious vocation. They refused to allow her to talk to any priests; they locked her in her bedroom. They demanded that she participate in banquets and other festivities, even forcing her to be a cup-bearer in a skimpy costume in the hopes that the bawdy compliments she received and the tradition that the cup-bearer was to take a sip of wine from the cup every time she served someone would loosen her inhibitions. All of these tactics failed: Christine remained adamant. In desperation, her parents talked her fiancé (who, from the accounts of her life, seems to have been something of a victim himself) into trying to rape her, but instead of violating her, the two of them sat on her bed and talked about religion all night. Christina’s parents finally took her to Fredebertus, the prior of Huntingdon Priory, to see if he could convince her to give up her stance against marriage. Her parents’ motives, as stated by her father, had more to do with family honor than concern for Christina’s welfare: “if she resists our authority and rejects it, we shall be the laughing-stock of our neighbors.” Fredebertus interrogated Christina, scolding her for her disobedience, but when she told him that she had vowed to remain a virgin while still a child, and explained her own motives, the prior decided to ask the bishop of Lincoln, Robert Bloet, to adjudicate the conflict. Bishop Robert decided in Christina’s favor, but then changed his

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mind, possibly because her parents bribed him. Christina finally elicited the aid of a local hermit, Eadwin, escaped from her family’s house, and eventually established a hermitage or anchorhold (a dwelling that was enclosed so that the hermit or anchoress had virtually no contact with the outside world) in Markyate. Her reputation for holiness soon attracted followers and eventually, her anchorhold was transformed into a priory for nuns, with Christina installed as abbess. Christina’s husband, Burhtred, obtained an annulment of their marriage around the time that she became an anchoress at Markyate. There is no evidence that Christina was ever reconciled with her family.8 Christina of Markyate’s experiences were undoubtedly unusual, even if we take the extremes described in the hagiographical account of her life as exaggerated to enhance her personal piety. Most wealthy and elite families considered the connections between the family and its members who—willingly or not—had embarked on careers in the church to be both important and more than honorable, since it enhanced the prestige of the family in the dominant religious culture. The relationship between church and laity in Byzantine Christianity was often more formal than that between church and laity in Roman Christianity, as the rituals of the Byzantine Church were far more focused on an authoritarian vision of the church. Sermons, for instance, which had become popular in the west by the twelfth century, were not included in the Eucharistic service until later. On the other hand, the practice of Christianity in the Byzantine Empire was much more a direct family affair than in the west for the simple reason that priests were allowed to marry and have children. As a result, priests were able to pass their livings on to the next generation and the role of priest’s wife was very important to the maintenance of the local Christian community, in much the same way as spouses of Protestant ministers and priests play specific, if informal, roles in modern-day Christianity. This could prove to be a detriment to ambitious priests, since bishops were expected to be unmarried and celibate. Married priests who were possible candidates for promotion actually had to divorce their wives and more or less consign them and their children to monasteries in order to be seen as viable candidates. The participation of the laity in Byzantine Christianity operated on similar levels as occurred in the west. Among elite families, the presence of personal chapels and the employment of chaplains meant that religious practice occurred largely in the privacy of the home. For the rest of the population, religious practice was probably relatively intermittent and depended upon the kinds of labor in which the family engaged. Family devotions were more likely to include very localized celebrations than more public displays of religiosity and the presence of large celebrations, such as the performance of mystery plays, did not occur in the east. On the other hand, literacy was more prevalent in the Byzantine world than in the west, and the Bible used by Orthodox Christians is written in

The royal monasteries of Glastonbury. In the Byzantine Empire such foundations were. became a nun at Amesbury in 1285. Amesbury. Byzantine imperial and aristocratic families also founded and patronized monasteries and nunneries in order to install family members in them or to become cloistered themselves.Religion and the Family
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Greek. nunneries. Mary and the Abbey of the Black Friars (the Dominicans) both in his capital city of Trim. members of royal families. Mary enjoyed not only the company of her grandmother at Amesbury. at least in theory. priories. Indeed. the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon king of Northumbria. and canonries were founded by members of the aristocracy or by royal families who did so both because of religious conviction and a desire to found an establishment to which they felt comfortable sending their children and grandchildren. and 13 other aristocratic girls. while Edward I’s and Eleanor of Castile’s daughter. He ultimately retired to Black Abbey. but also was permitted both to receive visits from family members and to leave the nunnery periodically to celebrate holidays with her family. convents. founded monasteries—as Hild did of Whitby—in order to have a place to go in retirement. supposed to be far less involved in the family lives of their founders than occurred in the West. Christian Religious Structures and the Family Another way in which elite families contributed to the religious culture of the Christian medieval world was through the mechanism of founding and endowing monasteries and other kinds of religious communities. Mary. along with her grandmother. and Fontevrault in France were all foundations to which sons and especially daughters of kings and queens of England were sent to live. such as Hild. living as a monk for the last few years of his life. Hild was the first abbess of Whitby. founded the Augustinian monastery of St. so it is likely that family devotions could involve a great deal more reading of the Bible than occurred in the west. Ireland. Evidence suggests that these kinds of relationships and the somewhat relaxed attitude toward the inviolability of the cloister were fairly common in the High Middle Ages. This connection between religiosity and an interest in the careers of younger family members and future generations is marked in the founding of these establishments. In the late thirteenth century. The monastic ideal in the east. dowager queen Eleanor of Provence. especially in the early period. with an abbess presiding over all. Geoffrey de Geneville. Moreover. In the early Middle Ages. quite a few of Hild’s nieces entered Whitby and several of her female kin succeeded her as abbess. which was a dual monastery: both monks and nuns were housed there. the lord of Trim. the language of the general population. included a complete
. Two of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughters were dedicated to Fontevrault. Most monasteries. This removal to a monastery did not necessarily affect family ties negatively.

11 Finally. and the erection of family monuments and funeral effigies. William. hermit. in a system known in the west as mortmain—the “dead hand” of the donor releasing the gift into the live hand of the church. Warwickshire in the mid-thirteenth century. the signs of sanctity often include the saint running away from home to become a monk. She granted them 100 shillings-worth of land from one of her manors and approved additional grants made “in free alms” by 23 other individuals. Some hermits who had established hermitages on remote mountaintops moved female relatives to nunneries nearby to keep in contact with them.
. When William Longespee. earl of Salisbury by right of his wife. In the later Byzantine period. outlined all the grants she was making in order to build the convent. to which she intended to retire and to which she was also dedicating her daughter. but this does not mean that men who dedicated themselves to the religious life completely relinquished their family ties.10 Often these donations were designed to be turned over to the religious community only after the death of the donor. these rigorous rules against interactions between monks and nuns and their natal families were often relaxed. all of which were to pay for prayers for the soul of her recently-deceased husband. Included as well were requirements that the nuns pray for the souls of a large number of family members. In Byzantine saints’ lives. Theodora Synadene. A typical donation might resemble the one made by Eve de Cantelou to the canons of Stodleigh. her daughter. her husband. All singled out children. elite families also expressed their devotion by endowing specific churches in order to defray the costs of things like stained glass windows. Euphrosyne. wives did the same for husbands. and others less closely related—a total of 15 people in all. her two sons and their wives. the building and decoration of chapels. Multiple family members might join the same monastic house. and family members were granted visitation rights and even could dine with their cloistered kin. to the point of never communicating with family members again.9 Families in both the Roman and Byzantine Christian cultures most often endowed monastic houses in order to guarantee prayers for the souls of beloved family members. the founder. or nun or doing so against the strenuous objections of his or her parents. In the fourteenthcentury typikon (a kind of donation charter that included a specific rule for the monks or nuns of the house) for the convent of the Virgin of Sure Hope. including her parents.184
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renunciation of family ties by the individual oblate. similar to the life of Christina of Markyate. These kinds of endowments were sometimes far more about family pride than about specific religious concerns. This seems to have been more the case in nunneries than in male monastic houses. died. Husbands made grants for the salvation of wives’ souls. perhaps as a result of influence from Westernstyle monasteries established after the Fourth Crusade when westerners conquered Constantinople. Ela. herself.

thereby scaring the people who heard these sermons into donating their life savings in order to free the souls of their loved ones from them. but the pressure to make sacrifices in order to better the afterlives of the beloved departed was great. Indulgences were small cash payments made to the church that granted in return a reduction of the time a soul spent in purgatory. Friars sent to preach the sale of these indulgences emphasized the torments of souls in purgatory. Jewish families were at the center of the religion. that was the rationale behind the sale of so-called indulgences that began to develop as a church strategy in the later thirteenth century. and later. they led the prayers for the beginning of the Sabbath at sundown on Fridays. Even the poorest people were prodded to buy indulgences to benefit family members. This might seem to display the church at its most cynical. and they were a huge part of the environment of late medieval piety. Certainly. In everything from daily prayers to weddings and funerals. These small gifts strained the resources of such families.Religion and the Family
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Ela was instrumental in both the design and the construction of his tomb in the brand-new Salisbury Cathedral.
. but they participated in these kinds of acts in smaller ways. perhaps ironically. If historians in the past have questioned the devotion of parents to their children and vice versa. such as the rebuilding of St. through the display of an elaborate and expensive monument. even those who had already died. at first those who were not yet dead. Jewish women had to maintain their kitchens as kosher. These donations were used to pay for big building projects. Each family member had specific roles to play in religious devotion. Urban confraternities. but it also displayed family feeling at its most emotional. Families of lower social status did not have the financial resources to engage in this kind of expensive and elaborate display of family and religious devotion. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. including his crusading activities. less involved in these family-based activities. and reached a peak in the fifteenth century. Jewish men were. all one has to do is see the number of people who purchased indulgences for dead and living parents and children to recognize how deep family devotion went. and they were in charge of the basic religious education of their children. Many endowment charters include small gifts made by people with only a little money to donate. religious groups connected to the guild system that operated as centers of religious activity and patronage. Jewish Families and Religion The laws against Jewish public performance of religious devotion that existed throughout the medieval world meant that Judaism was a familybased religion par excellence. Her intention was apparently to celebrate her husband’s life. relied on family donations to help the endowment funds used for everything from the decoration and building of churches to the granting of dowries to poor girls.

as well as learning prayers in their vernacular languages. there was little of the kind of hierarchical structure inherent in medieval Christianity. the boys were introduced to their teacher. Synagogues were much more intimate spaces than churches and the celebration of services were much more interactive than those in Christianity. to symbolize the sweetness of learning. especially Jewish boys and men. they were also taught. Public religious participation in medieval Judaism was more or less entirely conducted by men. Although there were no similar ceremonies directed to the religious education of girls. Only men could form a minyan. the smallest number of men necessary to say certain prayers or perform certain rituals.
. albeit at home. Jews. It was typical for families to attend Friday evening services and then to return home to their Sabbath meal. Medieval Jews celebrated both the creation of their religious texts and the initiation of boys into the community of learners. and learning began very early: at age five or six for boys. The Ten Commandments were read aloud. In the Middle Ages as now. since rabbis were expected to marry. and education were highly valued by the Jewish community and these qualities were particularly valued when they were used in the promotion of religious understanding. boys about to begin their formal education were presented before the synagogue’s Torah scroll. were expected to have at least a rudimentary understanding of Hebrew. which began with the female head of the house saying prayers and lighting the Sabbath candles. As a result. the rabbinic household and all its members were dedicated to the maintenance of religious devotion.186
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but their religious practices and their control of the more formal aspects of religious education involved them in the education of their children in quite direct ways. On the festival of Shavuot. or Yiddish. and special cakes were made to commemorate this introduction to religious education. The main focus was study of the Bible and the standard interpretive texts. Unlike western Christianity. in which all the rituals and forms of religious observance were conducted in Latin. such as French. so that they had a basic knowledge of Hebrew. English. The tablet was also smeared with honey. Scholarship. In Christian-dominated regions. literacy. Family participation in religious services in the local synagogue were far more consistent than religious observance by Christians. very observant Jews did not use any form of transportation—such as a cart or horse—or carry anything in their hands on the Sabbath. and they were each given a stone tablet on which were carved the first four and last four letters of the Hebrew alphabet and several relevant verses from the Torah. which celebrated the giving of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) to the Israelites. which began at sundown Friday and continued to sundown Saturday. a language that the vast majority of the population never learned or understood. In addition. religious education was not really separated from secular education in the Jewish communities.

which were organized and standardized in the Middle Ages. males and females were physically separated. plotted against Mordechai and ultimately. or The Feast of Fools. Families ate special food. but in such celebrations most of the prayers were said by the men and boys in the family. In the years following the Babylonian exile of the Jews.
. Ahasuerus. the niece of Mordechai. even including the enacting of mock marriages by boys dressed up as rabbis. drink. eggs dipped in salt water. Queen Esther had to save not only her uncle but all the Jews from Haman’s evil plan. two days in which the focus is directed more toward community-wide expressions of belief. married Esther.Religion and the Family
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In some synagogues. The community might also burn effigies of Haman and have bonfires. This story. nuts. must have been quite muted. Purim festivals were far more public and raucous. such as. One of the most joyous celebrations in the Jewish calendar in the Middle Ages was Purim. The king’s advisor. and haroset. such as thirteenth-century France. On the other hand. private devotions were often dominated by the women in the family. unleavened bread. vinegar and honey called. Purim celebrations in areas where there was considerable hostility against Jews. engaged in silly skits known in Germany as the Purim-shpiel that parodied and satirized this quite serious biblical story. One essential difference between Christian and Jewish practices is that the main focus of holidays such as Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Passover (the eight-day celebration of the Exodus story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt) is on the family unit. In regions of the medieval world where Jews were not restricted from public expressions of their religious culture. Two exceptions are Yom Kippur (the annual Day of Atonement) and Simchat Torah (the celebration of the completion of reading the Torah in weekly Sabbath services). but nevertheless retained this focus on family life. Religious holidays are generally far more family oriented in Judaism than in Christianity. a dish invented in the thirteenth century made of apples. Since food preparation was such a large part of holiday celebrations. Purim celebrates the events described in the biblical Book of Esther. was celebrated in a way that is similar to the mayhem of the Christian holiday of Carnival. focus on the family re-enacting the Exodus through ritualized eating of specific foods. Haman. The prayers recited during a Passover seder. thereby restricting the holiday to the more intimate confines of the household. the high king of the Persian Empire. whose role as governors of the household gave them status in the religious culture as well. and be merry well beyond the point of satiation. the leader of the Jews in the Persian capital city of Susa. retold in various ways during the festival of Purim. and were required to eat. Other holidays were more community oriented. Jewish women and girls played important roles in maintaining the religious calendar. for instance. with men and boys sitting or standing on the main floor and women and girls consigned to galleries above.

on the other hand. The localized and private nature of Judaism. Thus. the family continued to commemorate the recently dead for a year and then commemorate the end of the mourning period with the unveiling of the tombstone. from circumcision celebrations to weddings to funerals. medieval Judaism focused on the family as the center of all life and ritual.188
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Even Yom Kippur. clean. although primarily focused on fasting and prayer and usually taking place in synagogue rather than the home. Once the week was over. Unlike Judaism. the relationship between food and Judaism seems to have been just as important to medieval Jewish families as it is in the modern world. meant that the kinds of patronage in which elites engaged—the founding of monasteries and the beautification of churches—simply did not exist. or even comb their hair or look into a mirror (these were covered with a cloth to prevent the mourner from seeing his or her reflection). the intimacy of the Christian or Jewish family was probably less apparent. The breaking of the day-long fast at sunset was clearly a family celebration in the Middle Ages as much as it is today.
. In addition. during which time no one in the family was permitted to cook. even in the most public expressions of celebration and mourning. engaged in such kinds of funeral preparations. Although there were many opportunities in which the religion and family life intertwined. the Day of Atonement. the family was required to engage in a weeklong ceremony of public mourning. however. had a family component.12 After the burial. Dulcia. Families were sometimes able to act as patrons of synagogues that were being built or renovated. as apparently occurred in late twelfth-century Worms. and they were required to sit on low stools rather than cushioned chairs. where the Rokeah’s wife. although Christian and Islamic authorities officially forbade such public expressions of devotion because they might encourage gentiles to convert to Judaism. families often paid for the creation of new Torah scrolls for their communities and contributed to charity to maintain poor and destitute members of the community. Other members of the community were expected to take care of the family in mourning. The body was prepared for burial by women in the family. the extreme gender segregation of Islam probably worked against the kinds of family-based celebrations common in that religion. Islam and the Muslim Family Like Judaism. the practice of Islam is often an intimately personal act with an important family component. with very simple rules: believe in God and the uniqueness of Mohammed as the Prophet of God. Jewish funerary practices also involved a specifically family component in ways that Christian ceremonies did not. known as shiva. Indeed. Islam is fundamentally a very simple religion. perhaps assisted by the rabbi’s wife.

Important life stages. Nevertheless. In some areas. it is possible that small schools for girls were founded. so that even pilgrimage to Mecca was more likely to be viewed as a personal act than as a family event. had significant family components. such as convents. however. such as the single evening meal Muslims can eat during Ramadan. Exceptional girls might even be educated by male scholars and receive certificates of graduation and go on to teach even men. Although Islamic law governed the lives of Muslims from womb to tomb. which was always a minority faith whose membership had to accommodate the legal and social requirements of the dominant culture. Islam oversaw virtually every aspect of a Muslim individual’s life. available to elite Christian women. where religious observance could be in competition with secular culture. Unlike Jewish families. and the festival of Eid al-Fitr celebrated when Ramadan ends. Muslims are expected to marry and to produce children. weddings. but in fact it can make it more difficult. As a result. The sources for medieval Islam focus on the individual—the Muslim (someone who submits to God)—and the community of believers as a whole—the umma— rather than specifically on the family.
. Certain celebrations. indeed. This reality might seem to make understanding the relationship between Islam and the medieval family easier. probably meant that the highly educated Muslim female was very rare. as discussed in chapter 8. when they fast during daylight hours. involved memorization of the Quran. family plays a large part in Islam.Religion and the Family
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pray five times a day. most notably Egypt. such as circumcision rituals for boys. whose position would have prevented him from engaging in manual labor or interacting on a broad scale with secular activities that were considered corrupting. since food preparation and consumption are central to them. These pillars of faith can be completed by individuals whether they are part of a family or not. are more specifically family celebrations. Religious education. however. but it is not clear how consistently this was required of girls. Nevertheless. the very formation and structure of the Muslim family was overseen by Islam. This process was always an obligation of boys. a stable family unit must have been valuable to the Muslim cleric.13 The absence of the kind of religious institutions. the birth of children. it is difficult to connect family activities to the daily rituals of faith. there is no indication that wives were an important partner to the imam’s religious vocation or duties. in which a wife might take on professions in business in order to support her husband so that he could devote himself to religious scholarship. fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Individuals were required to adhere to the five pillars of faith. Unlike Christianity. and Judaism. tithe to the poor. with the exception of the Friday evening meal. and make a pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca at least once in one’s lifetime. whose teachers were women who had achieved a more advanced level of education than was typical.

Like Judaism and unlike Christianity. these were and are condemned by the more conservative religious authorities. however. In matters of religious law and governance. part in such patronage. Some Islamic communities also supported important religious schools. must have been moments of family solidarity in the Middle Ages. on the other hand. from the formation and dissolution
. Islam also recognizes two periods of fasting: Ramadan and the Day of Ashura commemorating the Exodus of Moses and the Israelites. but these were temporary foundations to which devotees went only for two years or so. with the males participating in one set of religious rituals and females engaging in others. The segregation of the sexes. the branch of Islam known as Sufism. but feasts. the emphasis in Christianity. Orthodox Islam recognizes only two festivals: Eid al-Fitr. which commemorates Abraham’s sacrifice of a ram instead of his son Ishmael (Islamic tradition states that God had demanded the sacrifice of Ishmael not Isaac) and takes place just after the period of pilgrimage. Conclusion The religious experiences of medieval families varied significantly depending upon location. and religious adherence. although these could be quite elaborate. all three faiths oversaw significant aspects of family life. at least among middle class and poorer Muslim families that did not have the wealth to practice polygamy or to physically isolate females in the household. Certainly the commemoration of family members would have played little. Periods of fasting and prayer were and are clearly connected to individual piety.190
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and funerals. and Eid al-Adha. did support schools for the development of Sufi mystical piety. but it is not clear whether these provided outlets for patronage for the elites in the same way that monasteries did for the elites of the Christian cultures. or the Hajj. the Feast of Breaking the Fast at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Although all the major religions contained elements that required or encouraged participation of families as groups. if any. This meant that opportunities for patronage were limited to the building and decoration of mosques. Neither was there the elaborate professional hierarchy that existed in medieval Christianity (and continues to this day). as well as the evening breaking of the fast during Ramadan. Judaism. with other considerations taking second place. medieval Islam did not have religious institutions that can be compared to monasteries or nunneries. social class. As will be discussed in more detail in chapter 11. probably influenced the activities of family members. the Big Feast or Feast of Sacrifice. which focused on a mystical relationship with God. so it is not clear whether these celebrations existed in the Middle Ages. Although modern-day Muslims might also celebrate special days such as Muhammad’s birthday and his Night Journey to Jerusalem. and Islam was always on personal devotion to God.

htm and “St./Chaucer/zatta/2ndnun.com/sfakia-crete/Christmas. 7. 2. html with corrections. 1959. 13. and Epiphany Celebrations. Like Daughter: The Parallel Careers of Margaret de Quency and Maud de Lacy” in Portraits of Medieval Women. Greek New Year. 197 and chapter 7 in this work. “The Byzantine Family and the Monastery. reprint 1987) and is excerpted at “The Second Nun’s Tale. MA: Harvard.sfakia-crete. Ibid. 9. The Life of Christina of Markyate. 6. The “Life of Christina of Markyate” appears in many sources.” http://www. This case appears in legal sources of the royal central courts.unc. but it can be difficult to extract an objective biography from the religious hagiography. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press. The Book of Fees Commonly Called Testa de Nevill. Marriage. Catherine of Siena” by Mary Ann Sullivan. no. html. A brief biography can be found at “The Catholic Forum. “The Byzantine Family and the Monastery. 2 vols.
Notes
1. For two versions. 38–39. The standard translation is that of C. “Like Mother. “The Jewish Family in the Rhineland in the High Middle Ages: Form and Function. Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe (Cambridge.fordham. See Sharon Farmer. “Agnes and Her Sisters: Squabbling and Cooperation in the Extended Medieval Family” in Mitchell. 113–115. As a result. The life of Catherine of Siena is easy to construct. This is discussed in Leila Ahmed. 1: 1371–Appendix.org/cathen/ 03447a. c. as well as in the Archbishop of York’s register. and Politics in England. 1920–1923). An excellent Web site describing Byzantine Christmas rituals is “Greek and Cretan Christmas Customs.” The American Historical Review 92. Mitchell. It is discussed by Michael Althschul in A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares.html. (London: Records Commission. and by Linda E. 1992).edu/depts. 1217–1314 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. This is discussed at greater length in Linda E.” http://www.htm. 10. G. 5.org/ domcentral/trad/stcather. This is discussed by Alice-Mary Talbot. Portraits of Medieval Women: Family.” http://www.newadvent. even when the devotional emphasis was on the individual.” http://www. H. 11. 5 (1987): 1085– 1110. Mitchell. 3. Coulton. 1992).” Speculum 61. ed.” 124–126. catholic-forum. Liber Feodorum. From C. 3 (1986): 517–543.htm.edu/halsall/cource/nogent-auto. 1965). 4.com/SAINTS/saintc82.Religion and the Family
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of marriage to the floor plan and contents of their houses to the education of their children. 8. 25–26. 2003). http://www. no. religion in the Middle Ages was a family affair. a Twelfth-Century Recluse (Oxford: Oxford University Press. Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Macmillan.
. see The Catholic Encyclopedia at http://www. 183–185. and Stow. Talbot. 12. 1225–1350 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan.op. See Kenneth Stow.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 119–129. Talbot. 1910). “Persuasive Voices: Clerical Images of Medieval Wives. 4: 133–141 and found at The Internet Medieval Sourcebook: “Guibert de Nogent: Autobiography.

.

harder than people in the developed world have to work today. Perhaps unsurprisingly. It can sometimes be difficult to uncover factual information about Jewish families and their labor in sources that are often irrationally hostile to the presence of Jews in the economic system but written by people who were dependent upon Jews for essential components of it.10
Families. One thing that can be said about every culture and every social class in the medieval world: families worked hard. were almost entirely confined to cities: not only were they usually forbidden to own land. and rural families were by a large margin the greatest number of laborers. culture. no matter what their social class. or religion. but Christian regional authorities limited the kinds of jobs Jews were permitted to do. Jews. the most common labor in the medieval world was agricultural. this population is the least represented in the sources. we can talk about even that elite level of medieval society as engaging in labor of different kinds. on the other hand. the creation of new families. and the death of family members. The work of historians who focus on the medieval west have revealed a great deal about peasant life. ethnicity. and the Laboring Family
Families in the medieval world operated as a team. Labor. In addition. This teamwork was vital to the family’s survival and it extended through marriage. but comparable material about Byzantine and Muslim peasants does not exist. although the medieval definition of labor excluded members of the aristocracy and many of the lower-level landed class (in medieval western terminology. those who fight). especially in the High Middle Ages. Of course. It is important to remember that
.

oil lamps. The Elite Family and Labor Although members of the elite did not get their hands dirty per se. made tapestries. such as writing romances and poetry and making music. wrote and taught in the schools and universities of the medieval world. Roads were primitive and all modes of transportation were unsafe in one way or another. they were ancillary to the wellbeing of families both in the education of future generations and the care of souls. Adult men were involved in warfare. Men in war had to engage in a variety of tasks and even mounted knights had to ensure the comfort and safety of their mounts. to automatic ovens. they did engage in all kinds of work. perhaps gardened. and improved the comfort level of the home with embellishments such as embroidered cushions (something essential to make the bare wood furniture comfortable). Women. with an efficient division of tasks depending on age. In very elite Muslim families. these divisions of labor were perhaps less evident. In order to survive. Families engaged in all of this labor. While many of these pursuits did not directly affect family life.194
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manufacturing and agriculture had to be done without any mechanization. theology and philosophy. whether you were a knight or a peasant. but also administration of the family’s estate records. only cleaner and of higher status. from warfare to administration. Men worked as tutors of young children. Nevertheless. no gas-fired furnaces. which included not only oversight of the servants. and level of experience. no artificial lights other than candles. a merchant or a blacksmith you had to work and so did the rest of your family. and helped servants in housekeeping.
. that entertained the elite family. In our modern-day sense of the term. gender. probably cooked. and science texts. to writing charters and deeds. from writing literature. that housekeeping was performed without any modern-day conveniences. and worked in public administration. no easy ways to boil water. Adult women oversaw the running of the household. this is labor as much as the work of a ditch digger is. and rushes soaked in animal fat. it is doubtful that they were able to avoid such kinds of labor entirely. The radical separation of women from men in the home and the practice of polygamy among the wealthiest worked against the kinds of teamwork evident among Christian and Jewish families. while women wove cloth. Elites dedicated to the religious life—both male and female—copied and illuminated manuscripts. the training of soldiers. no motorized vehicles. Even so. One thing elite classes were specifically not supposed to do was work that dirtied their hands. from overseeing servants and agricultural workers to weaving tapestries and sewing. There was no indoor plumbing. Both sexes engaged in creative pursuits. and engaged in the work of prayer. except perhaps for the most elite of the elite.

Girls were expected to be highly accomplished before they married. Girls and young women from elite families were expected to work hard at their education as well. They had to learn their lessons well and gain expertise early. William was called back to court by King John and Isabella remained in Ireland. since for most of them marriage followed soon after puberty. The origin of the social designation esquire in medieval England might have come from the duties of young men who were not yet knights. but was focused less on helping the family economically as it was connected to training for adult life. in 1207. it definitely was. As a teenager the young Yusuf accompanied his uncle Skirkuh to Egypt. The young Yusuf Ibn Ayyub was born in Tikrit and sent to Damascus to be educated. Clearly. so the working lives of moderately well-off Muslim family members were probably more or less identical to those of Christian elites. They assisted their mothers as they trained for their future lives as wives. When. household maintenance. or religious—diligently. Elite families. lay. including foster children in some cases. Thus a girl’s training must have been highly laborious. As in less wealthy families. participating in the ceremonial life of the noble court. He was instrumental in overthrowing the Shi’a Fatimid dynasty. but who had similar social and work obligations in the noble household. especially since the period of time in which their education took place was much shorter than that of their brothers. but also in sewing (elite women usually made the everyday garments of the household). and widows. and the agenda of furthering his family’s power and prestige seems to have one of his main motivations. William le Marshal and his pregnant wife Isabella de Clare traveled to Ireland to visit their estates. Their training formed the foundations of the elite culture no matter the religious context. Labor. the Ayyubid dynasty. Young men throughout the medieval world were expected to pursue their studies—whether military. earning the title Salah al-Din—the Righteousness of the Faith—and establishing his own family. and the Laboring Family
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only the very wealthiest men could afford to have more than one wife and an army of servants and slaves. which Isabella had inherited and William had acquired in marriage. Salah al-Din was a hard worker. mothers. According to the biographical poem.Families. The Story/History of William
. and the like. and music. the two arrived in Wexford as partners in the task of consolidating their control over their volatile territory. The experiences of the Kurdish leader Salah al-Din (Saladin) provide an interesting example. Although this might not seem like a form of labor. had to operate as a cohesive unit in order to maintain their social and political position. not only in the typical domestic labors of cooking. Young boys and teenagers in the Christian west worked as pages. child labor among elites was evident. estate management (which involved both literacy and numeracy). as the new rulers of Egypt. He was a very diligent student for the 10 years he spent learning both to be a warrior and a good Sunni theologian.

the control of the city government by guilds and guild masters masks to some extent the contributions of other family members in the
.196
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le Marshal. Husbands. women had to assume their duties in addition to their own. and children all had to work together to promote family success. Labor Among Urban Families in the Christian West The connections between family survival and family labor are far more clear for families below the social level of the aristocracy. In the city-states of medieval Italy and the urban centers of medieval Flanders. administrative. William and Isabella had to work together to be successful. William spoke to his and Isabella’s vassals in Ireland before he left. wives. legal. teacher to the children. and landed interests that engaged everyone in the household. I pray you keep her well and [according to right—that is. This was not necessarily an unusual circumstance. commercial. It encompassed economic. It is not surprising that chroniclers comment on the one quality that successful kings always seem to have had: the ability to function on very little sleep. and nurturer of infants. [by right of law] your lady. Their husbands. to the commercial preparation and sale of food operated from family-run businesses defined the commercial economy that was controlled by medieval families. While men were away at war or serving in administration.1
In this speech. elite women throughout the medieval world had to wear many hats. were significantly burdened as well. William is depicted as emphasizing that Isabella is the rightful lord and that their new family’s authority comes from her inheritance. Until God permits me to return. their experiences were not different from other aristocratic families. for she is your lady. Moreover. all members of the family had specific jobs to do to promote and sustain the family business. judicial. and I have nothing but through her. pregnant. managers of the household. the sick. to craft workshops. all members of the family were dedicated to their survival.
Lords! See the countess. Everything from finance and investment. as partners in their family enterprise. guider of the servants. As overseers of the estates. The medieval elite family was thus not merely a biological unit. Even among the wealthy urban elite. Moreover. who had to juggle military. which had been commissioned by his and Isabella’s children after their deaths. and domestic duties. according to the feudal law]. She remains amongst you. the poor. and this connection between dedicated labor and survival was essential among poorer families. the daughter [and heir] of the earl who freely enfeoffed you all when he had conquered this land. since men were away frequently. and the needy. whom I here present to you. Although the dynamic duo of William and Isabella were the most elite of an elite class.

Among the less well-off urban community. Children. dairy products. Daughters might be less directly engaged in the family business. and are thereby invisible in the sources. many of the terms used to define the work in these trades—brewster. workshops were in fact family affairs. and other essentials were purchased from vendors rather than prepared at home. Daughters were engaged in creating the material contents of their dowries and trousseaus. but generally sons were steered toward careers either directly related to family-owned businesses or useful to the family: as notaries. so cooked food. Historians have determined that a great deal of work completed in the cloth industries was performed by women and girls who were not paid for their labor. Other trades had a direct impact on family life. were absorbed into the family business as soon as their basic education was completed. but especially in Italy and Flanders. there is substantial evidence that women invested in business. beer. in learning household maintenance. Indeed. and so on. In medieval northern and central Italy. huckster. Although they had to do so through male intermediaries. bread. the relationship between family survival and work was far more direct. and so worked long hours for very low wages (usually about half of what men made doing the same kinds of work). Although the guild system that regulated all kinds of trade and manufacture in medieval western cities and towns identified only the masters and the paid apprentices and journeymen employed by the master.Families. lawyers. because they were members of the master’s family. especially younger sons. the marriages of daughters related directly to the continuing success of the family economy. and in preparing for marriages that were designed more to benefit the family than to provide a love match. most houses did not have anything beyond basic cooking facilities. and engaged in other kinds of money-based transactions in order to advance the family’s economic stability. with all members of the family engaged in the work involved. Wealthier families might choose to dedicate one or more children to careers in the church. This is particularly the case in trades involving cloth-making and the manufacture of clothing. This does not mean that daughters lived lives of leisure—far from it. and the name Brewster retains the professional designation of female brewers. Women all over Europe were the brewers of ale. purchased insurance instruments. such industry often hired in female servants who did not enjoy apprentice status. regrator—refer specifically to female work. these transactions were clearly initiated by the women involved. In the urban centers of the Middle Ages. even though their employment was likely not permanent: there was probably a high turnover of female labor as girls saved enough to be able to return home to their villages and marry. Families engaged in commercial food preparation were very common. These young women were considered members of the household. and the Laboring Family
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commercial life of the city. In addition. Labor. Until the introduction of hops in the
.

Both men and women sold books from the front of their workshops. and barber-surgeons were all medical practitioners who took on apprentices. started a brewing business. especially when done on a large scale or when significant travel was involved. There is evidence that. Whereas women were more or less in charge of selling prepared food. girls and women sometimes also performed the illumination work. Illustrations of book production from the later Middle Ages show female family members performing all the elaborate sewing of the manuscripts (something that required a very high degree of skill). and who also often expected
. but it was an expensive process to do at home. and repetitive work. Hucksters and regrators were women who sold prepared food in open marketplaces and in kiosks. known as forwarding. the public face of the family business was female. but it failed for a variety of reasons that she does not enumerate in her writings. such as Paris and London. In these circumstances. Again. Men were designated as victualers (pronounced “vittlers”): sellers of foodstuffs used in the preparation of food. other workers illuminated and decorated the margins of the pages. although most of the scribal work was likely performed by men and boys. where the division of labor among family members was more clearly defined. if indirectly. and still other workers created the miniature paintings that illustrated the manuscripts. men were engaged in the selling of food that had traveled some distance to the town. The food was prepared by both men and women in the home workshop. Book production became commercialized beginning in the thirteenth century with the rise of vernacular literacy and the development of universities. and Bologna in which apprentices and clerks copied manuscripts. carried another designation beyond huckster or regrator. which were often standardized and required the ability to do close. Some professional jobs were also connected. to familybased labor. Cambridge. Other kinds of food production. but independent women—especially widows—also brewed beer.2 Margery Kempe. beers was brewed locally. both wives and widows worked in these jobs. Family workshops appeared in major cities. More specialized non-textile based industries also included family labor. known as finishing. but most of the selling was done by women. There seems to be a connection between brewing beer and baking bread. and the highly specialized work of creating miniature paintings was the job of trained professionals. but much of the actual food production was likely to have been done by the rest of the family. which made it possible for ale to be preserved for longer. detailed. as mentioned in chapter 7. Bookbinding was a completely separate business. and the decoration of the leather covers. Physicians. and which was sold in large markets. especially the decoration of margins. or shopped from door to door. midwives. and major university centers such as Oxford. with men controlling baking and their wives engaged in brewing.198
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fifteenth century. while men and boys performed the rest of the binding work.

and included their families in their businesses. Unfortunately. they maintained workshops. and therefore regulated by the guild system. and the outfitting of family members is not mentioned in public documents interested in cataloging only paid labor. Family. In particular. Moreover. Families had to operate as a symbiotic organism in order to survive and no one in the family could slack off and expect the family to survive.Families. These were almost always widows. cleaning. Since barber-surgeons were guild-based. they were considered labor. trained apprentices. gardening. Public documents describing the different guilds and the different kinds of work performed in the city generally mention only the male head of the workshop-household and not the family workforce that included both men and women and boys and girls. unpaid labor such as household maintenance. but their children might well have also been working in the family business and they go unmentioned in these sources. In addition. Such careers often passed from mother to daughter and it was one of the few respectable jobs that married women could engage in without the oversight of a male. midwives and barber-surgeons carried on traditional work practices. but this only skims the surface of the intensive labor in which rural families engaged. Most of the labor of urban families is hidden. cooking. All of these activities were considered related. and the Laboring Family
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their children to enter into the family business. but also to virtually all the medical needs of women throughout the medieval period. by the later Middle Ages midwives were becoming increasingly associated with paranoia about so-called uncontrolled women becoming witches and so their status was reduced and it became harder to do their jobs. but their university training and certification placed them in a different category from barbers or midwives. This does not mean that these activities performed by all members of the family were (and are) not work. Midwives tended not only to the birthing of babies. Physicians were considered the theoreticians of the medical profession. They might occasionally perform procedures such as bleeding or examination of a patient’s urine. Labor. since they forced the practitioner to get his hands dirty (something physicians did not do). Sometimes women are mentioned as heading working households. so it was less typical for a physician to have a workshop. Work. and the Rural Community in the Medieval West The requirement of every family member’s participation is much more obvious when agricultural labor is considered. The rural family’s day was devoted to different kinds of work and the division of
. and performed surgical procedures such as trepanning (an ancient technique of drilling into the skull to relieve pressure after an injury) and amputating limbs. pulled teeth. Barber-surgeons were professional men who cut hair. Physicians required advanced training and a professional certificate to be able to practice their trade.

so it had to be consumed within a few days of its production. haywards. was used in cooking and was probably one of the few ways in which fresh dairy products were consumed. Some jobs in addition to spinning were also traditionally female. and other posts. a good reason why the term “brewster” existed in English long before any male-gendered term appeared. Although men generally did the heaviest farm work—plowing with teams of oxen or horses. Indeed. the remains of cheese making. weeding. The poorest members of the community were therefore granted the so-called privilege (it was in fact backbreaking labor) of gleaning so that they could use what they had gathered to feed their families. Cheese was much more durable and did not need to be kept cold in order to preserve it. blacksmithing. Women were in charge of the dairy. Medieval people did not drink milk except as infants and toddlers. As Judith Bennett has discussed. but planting. women occasionally appear in the records as performing these jobs even when there were men available to do them. maintain the crops. was performed around the house: not only cooking and cleaning. The bulk of women’s work. especially as weavers and especially in the winter months when farm work was suspended because of the cold weather. Ale did not contain any preservatives. so most of the dairy production was devoted to cheese making. were also in charge of brewing ale or beer in the centuries before the introduction of hops into the brewing process. care of chickens and other livestock used for food. it was not subject to the same rent obligations as the rest of the harvest.200
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labor was much more fluid than among more elite or urbanized families. sheep. Women were involved in planting. however. since everyone was needed to broadcast seeds. and harvesting the vegetable garden attached to the house. In regions where wine production was an important cash crop. gleaning (picking up by hand the leftover grain in the fields that had fallen after harvesting or that was too low on the plant to be caught by the sickles and other tools used by the harvesters) was specifically left to poor women and widows to do. and where the lord’s demesne land was taken up with grape vines. and goats. Women. In addition. This meant that every village had to have its resident brewster (also known as an alewife) who both produced and sold the ale to the other villagers. as mentioned above in reference to urban family labor. but it was considered a significant drop on the social ladder for men to resort to spinning thread to feed their families. families
. which included the milking of cows. Since the gleaned grain was not included in the official harvest totals. the brewing of ale was considered one of the most female-exclusive tasks. and the spinning of thread and weaving of cloth for the family’s use. such as the whey collected after the curds were formed (similar to modern-day cottage cheese or farmer’s cheese). and so on—and also performed more of the administrative work of the manor as stewards. Men are occasionally mentioned as participating in the latter task. and the preparation of cheese and butter. and harvest and glean the fields.

where family-based economic systems were quite common. sons.Families. it is entirely likely that women supplemented the family income by engaging in work that was different from that of their husbands. identification of trades for taxation lists. and women and girls were probably more frequently engaged in crushing the grapes in large vats with their feet than were men. Some members of the merchant class were wealthy enough to be considered aristocrats. Unlike the west. but boys and girls both worked in the fields. poor women in Byzantine cities always populated the brothels. the most typical trades in which Byzantine women engaged were in textiles—spinning. of course. as mentioned in chapter 9. The Byzantine Economy and the Byzantine Family One major barrier to discussing the Byzantine family and its economic role in the urban and rural environments is a lack of both primary sources and secondary analysis of them. Labor.3 One thing is clear: both the Byzantine urban and the rural economies were entirely dependent upon the actions of the family and the cooperative nature of family work. and brothers. Men tended the vines. which were likely to be small and located within a domestic environment as they were in the west. it is not entirely clear whether the guilds that seem to have existed were structured in the same ways as in the west. such as descriptions of professions. a village-wide—affair. were not exempted from agricultural labor. In addition. leaving household and business management to wives and sons. weaving. to assist in the workshop along with the children of the family. as herders of animals. and so on. the documents are usually related to imperial administration. such as presiding over market stalls selling fruits and vegetables. and the production of oil involving the entire community. Not only were older girls in charge of taking care of younger siblings. And. Although information on the Byzantine economy is rather plentiful. Masters of workshops. must have relied on spouses to take care of apprentices. Olive production was also a family—indeed. but everyone participated in the harvest. and so on.4 In other aspects of the Byzantine family economy. and the Laboring Family
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were engaged in all aspects of viniculture together. and even possibly selling food door to door. with the harvest employing everyone in the family. a few women in Byzantine cities served the elites as hairdressers. Survival of the rural family probably depended upon child labor. in the dairy. Like western European urban women. and as minders of the cooking fires and the food being prepared on them.
. without it. Men who headed these businesses probably traveled a great deal. working in both private homes and in the public baths. there would not have been enough food to feed the family or cloth to dress them. sewing—and in selling foodstuffs. Children. Even prostitutes might have been working to supplement family rather than personal income. Elite families engaged in both merchant and land-based businesses as investors.

the day to day labor of Byzantine family members was probably not that different from that of their peers in western Europe. like those of other medieval bureaucracies. Nevertheless. however. the variety of sources about Byzantine labor culture is limited in such a way as to make it difficult to illuminate the varieties of familybased work. the kinds of labor poorer families had to perform themselves—household maintenance. Middle class and poor urban families did not have the luxury of always keeping womenfolk from public view. Wealthier peasant families who had surplus crops might also become involved in local or middle-distance trade. textiles. social and cultural differences between Muslims and their neighbors might have been significant enough to alter the relationship between work and the family. Families and Work in the Muslim World The problems historians encounter in trying to uncover the contributions of the family to the Byzantine economy are magnified when trying to do the same for the Islamic world. and Jews in the economies of their regions existed also for the lands around the Mediterranean dominated by Islam. Byzantine Christians. cooking. Obviously. and other essential items. even if many of the conclusions are only speculative. minimized the contribution of family members to the economy. or even in the Muslim Middle East. Although men in the family usually purchased
. Unlike for the west. mostly female. Among Muslim elites. Peasant families also maintained workshops for the manufacture of craft goods to supplement their income. These could include the making of pottery. such as bread and wine. and merit discussion. at least officially. that were too expensive for single family units to produce. Byzantine law had retained the late Roman statutes mandating that sons would work the same jobs as their fathers—a system of inherited status dating from the late third century—so often families were. In addition.5 Thus.202
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It is somewhat easier to discuss rural labor in the context of family. These would have been overseen by both the elite women in the family and possibly by eunuch overseers. Workshops could engage in blacksmithing and even the production of labor-intensive foods. the peasant family eking out a living on a small farm needed everyone to be engaged in that task. and so forth—were performed by slaves. tied to the soil or to specific jobs that were considered essential by the government. The deliberate erasure of most female public activity in Islamic sources. The official perception of labor by the Byzantine authorities. Historians might be able to assume that many elements common to the experience of medieval western Christians. so the entire family was likely to be more involved in the economy. and the emphasis on the dominance of males in the economy work against understanding the ways in which family labor contributed to its survival and prosperity.

According to recent research on the labor of women in the medieval Islamic world. such as letter collections and contracts. In fact. having virtual monopolies over the spinning. describe a significant level of activity by women. there was significant public hostility to any overt involvement of women in family-based economic transactions. so the bans were often overlooked or lifted. from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. in that they were jobs specifically geared toward wage-earning. This is not necessarily all that different from the veiled disapproval in official sources concerning such activities among women in medieval Italy. Sources for Italy. When this occurred. Women might have had an advantage in these jobs over men. a job also performed by men.6
Shatzmiller goes on to say that Muslim women dominated the textile industries in particular. especially widows. According to Maya Shatzmiller. and division of labour. These activities were similar in a sense to those of their fathers. The Islamic authorities. husbands. dying. or souk. and sons. such as buying and selling land or investment in mercantile ventures. as was that performed by males. Some women worked as peddlers. for clothing. This does not mean. textiles. and the Laboring Family
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the food that was consumed daily. The trades and occupations which Muslim women exercised. This labor must have been essential for family maintenance. Despite the profound loss of status that appearing in public could confer on Muslim women. however.
women’s participation in the labour market [was] both considerable and diversified. mandated considerable gender specificity with respect to the kinds of labor in which women were permitted to be engaged. or that it stopped them from engaging in such practices. Backlashes against the presence of women in these public venues did occur and local magistrates sometimes banned them from the souks.Families. their involvement and skills seem to have been more sophisticated and wide-ranging than those of medieval European women. Muslim women did in fact engage in a wide variety of economic activities that enhanced both their personal fortunes and those of their families. Nevertheless. the food preparation necessary in order for the men to purchase it for their families was probably done by women. specialization. that women paid attention to this hostility. going door to door to sell items directly to elite households. reflect a high degree of participation. These kinds of sources simply do not exist in any numbers for the Islamic communities in the Middle East. since they could enter the women’s quarters of the house without endangering the respectability of the women in the
. in investment schemes and merchant ventures. and even jewelry. women also shopped in the marketplace. and embroidery trades. however. poor women in the cities of the Islamic world had no choice but to appear in public in order to do their work. the professional and unskilled tasks they performed and the commercial activities and deals in which they were involved. Labor. it hurt the market economy to a great degree. however. In addition.

They competed with Jews in certain kinds of long-distance trade. and as specific as laws were in attempts to limit female participation in the public labor market. Poor women also were hired as professional mourners for funerals. and the production and sale of both raw materials and items manufactured in their cottage industries. historians today have been concentrating their efforts on uncovering the presence of women in the labor force of the medieval Islamic world. In both urban and rural environments. manufacture. although they had a monopoly on trade through central Asia along the famous Silk Road. with Muslim men engaged in military professions. a position he won because of his associations with his father. This was a given in the medieval economic culture.7 Perhaps ironically. As mentioned earlier in this chapter. The jobs in which men engaged are much more evident in the sources and were not significantly different from those of their Christian and Jewish counterparts.
Division of labour and specialization in agriculture is generally low and unlikely to grow. raising animals. with members of his family. responsible for an array of tasks.
. came from specific families. which took him all over the Mediterranean world. trade. Muslim men engaged in all aspects of administration. The men and boys in a given family tended to cluster in specific trades. or with the help of daily laborers. with sons following fathers into the business.and lower-class people could not occur in isolation away from family participation. not his military prowess (although he more than proved himself to be an effective military leader afterwards). This is the case. including ploughing. which dominated the medieval Islamic economy into at least the twelfth century. Muslim holy men. harvesting. constitutes a single production unit. As invisible as family members might be. even when the sources deliberately hide the activities of family members in order to highlight the dominance of specific males. The merchant Ibn Battuta is better known for his descriptions of his travels. Generations of imams. than he is for the products his business transported. This is certainly the case in agricultural production. as well.204
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family. Nur ad-Din. Perhaps unlike their peers in other regions. Salah al-Din accompanied his uncle on military campaign to Egypt. the jobs performed by middle. given the fact that the farmer. at which time more specialized manufacturing might have begun to overtake agricultural production. although this practice was frowned upon by Islamic authorities.8
This quotation would refer equally well to agricultural labor in the Christian west and Byzantine east as well. even elite scholars and religious philosophers might engage in commercial activity. followed his father Zengi as the ruler of Damascus. survival would have been impossible without the full participation of the entire family. and agriculture. The famous Seljuk amir. planting.

Families. Letters found in the Cairo geniza outline some of these relationships. a trader on voyage to India to acquire ambergris (for making perfume) and spices writes to his wife. In the years between 1173 and 1185. engaged in long-distance trade especially of textiles. and even dyers all passing their skills from father to son. and the lands of the Middle East. who in her letters to him had provided news of the family.
. merchants. Multiple generations in the family participated together and close relationships were formed as a result. recently established in Cairo. not just between the great merchant families. banking and money-lending. while simultaneously berating him for his long absence.11 One area in which Jews were heavily involved. dyes. the head of one merchant family thanks the elder of another family for his assistance in the business affairs of his two younger brothers. outlines how hard he has been working—a job that apparently included keeping his traveling companions happy with long drinking contests—and enumerates all of the items he will be bringing back home. This accords well with other sources of Jewish economic history. decided to travel through the Mediterranean world. to Italy and Sicily. The Christian demonization of Jews who engaged in currency exchange and other banking fields. and the Laboring Family
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Jewish Families and Work Like Christian families in medieval western Europe. The merchant. at least until the thirteenth century.9 In another letter. Constantinople. with examples from the other medieval cultures. such as parts of eastern Europe and some portions of the Muslim-controlled Mediterranean. and indeed. Jewish family-owned conglomerates operated throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. as portrayed for instance in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Although particularly interested in the schools of Jewish scholars and sites sacred to Judaism in the places he visited. Labor.10 One of the most well-known of the Jewish merchant traders is Benjamin of Tudela. According to his account. divisions of labor tended to follow family lines. and goldsmithing. traders. from the early thirteenth century. but also within families. after he retired from active work and released from being tied down to one place by the death of his wife and the growth to adulthood of his children. in his reply. He also assures his distraught wife that he has been faithful to her and will continue to be so. this labor was urban and focused on professions such as long-distance trade. who. Except for the few areas where Jews were permitted to own land. In one letter from the early eleventh century. Jewish families relied on all of their members to work toward the survival of the family. belies the fact that Jewish bankers were instrumental to the survival of the medieval kingdoms. and perfumes. Benjamin wandered from Spain through southern France. Benjamin also provides a detailed glimpse of the economic life of Jewish communities at that time. with scholars and rabbis. manuscript production. was the production and sale of high-quality cloth.

It is little wonder that Jews began migrating to central Europe. maintain their own butcher shops. and medicine became increasingly restricted from the early thirteenth century onwards. even before they were deported from England and France. These activities. In addition to the trades mentioned above. Jews also had to oversee their own food production and preparation because kosher laws demanded that the food consumed by Jews not be polluted by contact with products. to Bohemia and Poland. In addition. Both Jewish men and women became moneylenders. This was not such an issue in the Muslim world. however. but both the church and the state relied heavily on Jewish bankers and restricted Jews from practicing most other professions except within the enclave of their own communities. Although sons were usually
. most kings in medieval Europe—in particular kings Edward I of England and Louis IX of France—exploited the Jews shamelessly. Also like Christian businesses. but when their survival depended upon lending money at interest. virtually the only profession permitted to Jews before their expulsion in 1290 was moneylending. a precarious profession in the medieval West. like those mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela. In Mediterranean areas they were engaged as well in olive and wine production. Jews became more limited in the kinds of trades in which they were legally able to engage. this became considerably less important. for example. goldsmithing. Jewish businesses also operated out of the front rooms and ground floors of their houses. Moneylending was. which was defined as making a profit from money transactions. As membership in guilds became more imbedded in both western and Byzantine commercial law. Skilled artisans in metalworking and mining. Like Christian businesses. but the increasingly strict requirements for maintaining dietary purity meant that Jewish communities had to develop their own supply networks. Jewish women were heavily engaged in investment and oversight of the long-distance carrying ventures in which their husbands and sons engaged.206
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especially silk and Spanish wool. and probably also have their own versions of hucksters and regrators: women who sold prepared food in the marketplace. since followers of Islam are also forbidden to eat pork. It was not initially seen as a respectable trade among Jewish communities. Many Jewish families were probably pushed into the profession of moneylending out of necessity. Jews found themselves boxed in: the church condemned usury. not only taxing them to pay for Crusades and other activities. In England. silk embroidery. would have necessitated intensive involvement of virtually all the family. that Jews are forbidden to eat. family members were the invisible labor force in all aspects of a given trade. but also granting amnesty to courtiers in debt to Jewish bankers or even appropriating the debts for their own benefit. such as pork and shellfish.

or studio working directly in the family business. There are many instances in the English public records. the workshop. Labor. and the women who worked in them were not always unmarried. gathering the leftover grain after the harvest). for instance. Children might be employed as procurers. of families who used work as a pretext for poaching in the lord’s woods and streams. While this might not seem like work. Burglary. and even for committing acts of sabotage against the lord’s fields. or in the shop. Extended family members were often involved in such activities together. Marriages were also organized to maintain professional networks. either learning household maintenance and preparing their trousseaux for marriage. prostitutes formed family-style relationships for their domestic arrangements. Nevertheless. and other illegal activities could also be considered in some circumstances family businesses. In particular. Families and Untraditional Work The working family was not always respectable. with brothers and cousins being engaged in operating teams of robbers along the king’s or public highways. Brothels or stews (as they were called in England) could be run by married couples or widows. prostitution was not always a job in which only single women engaged. Stolen property might be hidden in the cupboards of the house—thus implicating the robber’s wife as an accessory since she held the keys to the cupboards. No level of social condemnation or town ordinance could control this particular industry: prostitution was engaged in by both men (as homosexual or transvestite prostitutes) and women. families sometimes engaged in mayhem directed against their lords or overseers. Even when they were not connected directly to a family (although this was fairly common). robbery. Unlike the guild system. and so on. for illegal gleaning (that is. or sustaining of the dominant culture. thus perhaps making it less likely that they were active in the family business until they had had at least some level of schooling. medieval towns and cities were teeming with them and they had an eager and enthusiastic clientele of both lay and (in the case of Christian Europe) clerical men. but it is likely that the social culture tried to control such activities. Children were employed as pickpockets. rabbinic families intermarrying. daughters were probably put to work at fairly young ages. which effectively kept Christian families engaged in the same kinds of work for generations. Illegal and unrespectable activities were also family affairs. law-abiding. they engaged in similar activities. per se. In addition. with cousins marrying to establish connections between farflung branches of the family. and the Laboring Family
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busy with their education until they reached adulthood. and businesses became associated with specific families that passed the business from father to son and so on. the fact that
.Families. Jewish families did not have a political-economic system that mandated such restrictions.

Work internal to the family’s success depended on the dedicated labor of every person in the household: from the women’s work of food preparation and of spinning thread and weaving cloth to provide adequate clothing for everyone. “State. I have used Crouch’s translation with some changes. and the family conflicts Shakespeare used as the basis for the play Romeo and Juliet were common enough to resonate in their literary forms with their audiences. A useful comparison is by Alexander Kazhdan. medieval families survived by working together. The feuds described in Icelandic sagas. especially 86–87. or by the somewhat less defined requirements of a family business. to the men’s work tilling the fields and maintenance of farm equipment. Although the sources very often hide or bury such activity. This is discussed by Alexander Kazhdan. 2. William le Marshal (London: Longmans. Notes
1. so this version differs slightly from his. I have placed the differences in brackets. 3. “The Italian and Late Byzantine City” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 1–22. Beer.208
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these activities were illegal does not mean they were intended to do more than help the family survive. stays together. and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World (New York: Oxford University Press. 4. Bennett. families throughout the medieval world could engage in vendettas and feuds that would result in serious disruption of the countryside. urban. the family-based violence in medieval society certainly claimed family survival as its rationale. 100. but it is not a meaningless claim that such kinds of illegal activities could be considered a family business. Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal.”12 Such activities seem to have been on the extreme end of family cohesiveness. or peasant. 13532–13544 quoted in David Crouch. Feudal. the working family. whether elite. either by a strict division of labor in which all family members had specific tasks to do. 1999). This situation was not relevant just for work outside the family that required everyone’s effort. Although this was not necessarily work that was geared toward family financial maintenance. discusses the process in England whereby men began to take over the professional production of beer after about 1350 because of the introduction of hops into the brewing process. Judith M. Conclusion No matter what their religious affiliation or cultural context. identifying the labor of only the head of the household. middleclass. and Private Economy in Byzantium” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47 (1993): 83–100.
. Finally. As Barbara Hanawalt mentioned. “the family that slays together. operated as a unit of production. 2003). such as Njal’s Saga. ll. Ale.

but such structures existed as well in the Byzantine East and the Muslim world. with their typical tensions and forms of cooperation. this deliberate association with family-based systems was more obvious in the medieval West. The Royal Court and the Royal Family In the early Middle Ages. Transitional. In addition. and Non-traditional Families
The family was the basic unit of all social institutions in the Middle Ages. from the royal court to the Benedictine monastery. all medieval cultures contained non-traditional—and often condemned—structures that either self-consciously mimicked family relationships or sought to replace traditional families. resonate in ways that medieval people would have recognized as family-based. Even in circumstances that modern-day thinking might not even begin to define as familial. the head of the family with all the
. but rather that their structures were intended to mimic family relationships. The king was. This is not to say that all of these institutions were comprised of family units. the rulers of the Germanic kingdoms deliberately organized their administrations around the familiar structures of family life. from the merchant guild to the university. This in turn had an impact on the ways in which people experienced such institutional structures and also affected the ways in which more conventional families interacted with them.11
The Family as Rhetorical Device: Traditional. these structures. Again. This situation is particularly true of western Christendom and somewhat less true for the Muslim emirates. in effect.

for example. is described as a ring giver or treasure giver. such as financial security and personal safety. it referred to the obligations a monarch or chieftain owed his followers. They distributed largess as paternal figures. Queen Fredegund made their circumstances worse. Queen Wealhtheow. the ultimate mother figure. The term “ring giver” encompassed not just the giving of gifts. also embodied the ideal qualities of motherhood. in control of its economic life. Their kingdoms were destined to be divided upon their death on the basis of the partibility of family estates. widow of King Chilperic. since spinning and weaving were associated with women. especially. Kings controlled the marriages of orphans and widows often as their legal guardians. however.
. ensures that he is fed and treated well. Beowulf promises her that he will set the mead-hall to rights by destroying Grendel. depicts the Merovingian Queen Fredegund. Kings operated both as patrons of everything from religious foundations to schools and colleges and as disciplinarians punishing people who misbehaved by breaking the law. Thus. which was housed within their domestic apartments or bedrooms. This meant that queens were effectively the lords chamberlain of the kingdom. She is richly dressed and acts as cup bearer to all the men in the hall.”1 Other early medieval sources present kings and.2 Although the system in place in the early medieval Germanic kingdoms eventually evolved into a more professional administrative structure. King Hrothgar. “these words well pleased the royal lady. She welcomes Beowulf to the court. The Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf illustrates the ways in which early medieval Germanic kings and queens embodied paternal and maternal roles for their courts. especially queens. Queens had maternal roles to fill as well. instead of addressing the problem. Her particular vice was irrational rage directed at a person giving her bad news. because he was unable to protect his followers from the attacks of Grendel and his mother. just as mothers did in private families. the image of the king as father and the queen as mother still resonated with medieval people. Gregory of Tours. Hrothgar’s court was in disarray. Queens deliberately associated themselves with the Virgin Mary. instead of protecting the helpless. Hrothgar’s wife. They oversaw certain manufacturing in the kingdom. They also patronized and founded monastic houses because they were supposed to oversee the religious education of the kingdom. When she was told by her servant that her daughter Rigunth was being mistreated. Queens were expected to monitor the education of minors in wardship to the king as well as of their own children. They held the keys to the treasury. which is one of the most complimentary adjectives early medieval people could use for a king or lord. such as textile production. to whose court of Heorot Beowulf arrives. especially to the needy. as a particularly bad parent. As the poem relates. queens as bad parental figures. Fredegund accused the messenger and his associates of wrongdoing instead.212
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patriarchal rights pertaining to fathers.

prompting criticism from some contemporaries. At the opposite end of the parental spectrum was the royal triangle made by King Louis IX of France. These images can be illustrated by comparing contemporary descriptions of the royal families in thirteenth-century England and France. Isabella la Marshal. careful. acted as regent of France until Louis reached his officially majority at age 21. the Marshal earls of Pembroke. were often criticized for being. Queen Marguerite of Provence (the sister of Henry III’s wife. that she became horribly jealous of her daughter-in-law when the young couple showed signs of being in love. was devoted to him and his ambitions. and she promoted his interests whenever possible. She was also too emotional to be considered a good mother. He married Marguerite of Provence shortly before this time. Henry’s younger brother. He governed his lands not by pettiness or petulance but decisively and consistently. Marguerite was a cousin of Blanche’s. Queen Eleanor of Provence. despite being a member of the most prominent non-royal family in England. Richard earl of Cornwall. for instance. In contrast. bad parental figures. he spent money lavishly on the renovation of Westminster Abbey church. and pushed their own family forward contrary to the interests of the state. played favorites among the vassals in their court. Dowager Queen Blanche of Castile. and clear-headed. Public displays of these paternal and maternal connections were common. indeed. Queen Blanche. Richard was disciplined. his mother. King Henry III and his wife. Richard was grief stricken. Louis VIII.The Family as Rhetorical Device
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and encouraged those associations through conspicuous acts of piety. Louis.
. in essence. promoted favorites. Eleanor). Queen Eleanor promoted the interests of her birth family over those of her family by marriage by arranging marriage alliances between her female cousins and the most eligible bachelors in the kingdom. As discussed in chapter 7. and neglected other duties. are depicted in some chronicles as the perfect parental couple. and so on. religious patronage. and his wife. Alternatively. but this did not prevent him from being an effective advocate for his allies at a time of great unrest in the kingdom. Isabella. This marriage was arranged by his mother. Henry was thought of as too religious. Queens charged with being bad mothers favored one faction over another. Blanche was apparently so devoted to her son. and his wife. Even though the marriage was her idea. and propaganda strove to associate monarchs with images of the good father and good mother. When Isabella died in childbirth. died. when her daughter Mary died at a very young age. kings who were perceived as bad were characterized as arbitrary or inconsistent parental figures: they punished people on a whim. He was overly fond of his half-siblings and was accused of ignoring the needs of both his biological children and his full siblings. but his mother. and the grandiose presentation of alms to the poor. took bad advice. His wife. she was so overcome with grief that she became ill. Louis had been crowned at age 12 in 1226 when his father. in 1234.

the contrast between bad father and good father would not have gone unnoticed. This was also the case with the Byzantine imperial family. This suggests that they felt their readers would relate better to the subjects at hand were they narrated as business conducted within a larger-than-life family. The qualities of a good parent—piety. Louis was transformed into an exemplary father figure for the kingdom. they were still considered to be honorable acts. wars. He was very pious. especially in comparison to Henry. such as Charles of Anjou. Louis’s prowess on the battlefield was lauded (Henry III’s attempts at war were disasters) and even though his crusading efforts were abject failures. firmness of discipline. The insertions of these episodes into the larger political narrative thus encouraged the reader to think of these very prominent people in a family context. Even though the historical reality was probably a far cry from these rhetorical images. combined with Blanche’s jealousy. Although Queen Blanche was revered as a devoted mother. but not perceived as excessively so. Perhaps the reason is that the enduring image of Henry is of a timid overly pious person. fairness—were emphasized in depictions of so-called good Byzantine emperors and empresses. but chronicles and his official biographer. while the opposite
. claim that he was not overly influenced by them. however. but that of Louis is of a fatherly figure casually seated under his favorite tree as he dispensed wisdom and justice. Although the events around which medieval chroniclers locate these kinds of portraits were political in focus—rebellions. It is perhaps ironic that in many ways the careers of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence and of Louis IX and Marguerite of Provence paralleled each other so closely. was rumored as the reason why Marguerite did not conceive for several years after the wedding. hiding in terror when his castle was attacked by rebels. but with so radically different results in the historical record. and queen-consort created difficulties in the context of the rhetoric of monarchs as parental figures. Henry III’s sons Edward and Edmund. and so on—the terminology they used was family-based. she became a rather over-domineering parent to all of France. but he even took the English princes. which chroniclers consistently depicted in a parental role with respect to their treatment of the people and of their families. This royal triangle between king.214
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The dowager queen was a domineering character and Louis did not really gain any independence from her until she died in 1252. He was a mentor not only to his own brothers. Louis’s attachment to her metaphorical apron strings was perceived as a weakness on his part and that. He was willing to consult with both his mother and his wife. the Sire de Joinville. dowager queen. who had promised but failed to go on crusade. generosity. Once Queen Blanche died. under his wing—they accompanied Louis on crusade—and he was considered a far better role model than their father.

or in Byzantine monastic orders. Heads of monastic houses were titled abbots and abbesses (derived from the Hebrew abba. Monks and nuns retained contact with both their kin and with the outside world. and never entered a formal
. Monasteries self-consciously tried to embody Jesus’s command to leave all elements of worldly activity and follow him. for instance. The Dominicans and Franciscans conceived (at least at first) of their orders as collections of brothers. The crusader orders. In female religious communities. such as the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. the Masters’ connections with the brothers of the order were far more deliberately authoritarian than the more democratic system of the traditional monastery. and to chide and punish them when they misbehave. of course. such as existed among the Benedictines and the Cistercians. mimicked feudal relationships in their order. Family members often joined the same monastic house. Indeed. These realities sometimes conflicted with monasticism’s ideals. the relationship between the abbess and the nuns was supposed to be similar: a mother and her daughters. They tried to avoid strong associations with a father figure. in which the monks elect the abbot and prior who govern their house. people who dedicated themselves to monastic life were supposed to cut off all associations with the outside world. Members of the monastic house were called brothers and sisters. but monasteries were unable to divorce themselves completely from the secular world. could have children. As monasticism developed. The patronage structure necessitated frequent communication between monastic houses and their patrons. The historical reality of the monastic experience was. Although the feudal relationship could be likened to a family structure. The relationship between the abbot and the monks as described. quite different from the ideal. the Franciscans and Dominicans had tertiary orders made of lay men and women who remained active in public life.3 The Monastic Family The associations made between monastic life and family life in the Middle Ages (and today) could not have been more deliberate. were permitted to marry. In addition.The Family as Rhetorical Device
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qualities formed the descriptions of those perceived as bad by chroniclers such as Theodoros Skoutariotes and Michael Psellus. in the Rule of St. the relationships between the abbot/abbess and their spiritual sons and daughters did change over time. one of the more common complaints of nuns was the abbess-mother showing favoritism toward a particular member of the community: a kind of sibling rivalry common to enclosed groups. meaning “father”). including those with their birth families. Benedict is seen as that of a father to his children. In theory. The abbot is supposed to reward the monks when they have done well. The characterization of monasteries as gender-segregated families extended throughout the system in both the western and Byzantine forms of Christianity.

Apprentices lived in the homes of their masters. some of them women. but an important—and in the Middle Ages controversial—branch of Islam does have some structural similarities: Sufism. Unlike monasteries. students did not dedicate themselves permanently to these domestic structures. Some scholars consider it to have developed entirely out of Islam. it is unlikely that they came from non-Sufi families. Sufism and the Islamic Umma Islam does not have a real equivalent to the Christian monastery. the workshops overseen by guilds were based fundamentally on family structure. although they did not necessarily use the same terminology as the Christian monastic system. In addition. Although there were female Sufis.4 Sufi practitioners are divided into orders. did nevertheless operate as paternalistic communities. some of the great Sufi leaders formed the basis of generations of Sufi philosophers and teachers. The Guild and the University As mentioned in chapter 10. medieval monasticism was still profoundly family-centered and the terminology and relationships encouraged were based on family norms: brothers and sisters isolated from the world and reliant on no one but themselves for their sustenance. In addition. so there were no female-only communities or orders. the emphasis on the equality of all members and their original resistance to authoritarian hierarchies. during which they lived in communities of students. if at all possible. each headed by a teacher or wise man. while others have suggested that its origins actually lie earlier. Medieval Sufi orders. especially among the Franciscans. Sufi orders maintained inns and hostelries for members who traveled. They could move in and out of the Sufi orders at will and still be considered a member. so the idea of enclosed communities of people dedicated to chastity had no place within an Islamic context. For this reason. Family members usually worked as unpaid but essential labor in the activity of the
. Islam mandated that all Muslims were to be married. Even with these kinds of changes in structure. Sufism is a mystical form of Islam whose origins are somewhat hazy.216
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monastery except perhaps very late in life. Individuals dedicated themselves to being immersed in religious instruction with a particular teacher or master for a period of time. such as the great Muslim philosopher al-Ghazali. Although both the Franciscans and the Dominicans eventually did conform to more traditional monastic structures. the traditional family was just as important within Sufism as the ad hoc and temporary family of scholars who attended the Sufi schools. with the master operating as a father figure. Therefore. remained. whose wives oversaw their maintenance.

since most guild masters both married the daughters of other guild members and wanted their own daughters and sons to do so as well. they were popular among certain populations that were largely left out of the dominant social systems of the Middle Ages. In addition. usually fueled by religious dissent or unorthodoxy. The medieval academic university essentially operated as a guild.The Family as Rhetorical Device
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workshop. and who contributed money to the building of special buildings and the beautification of the city. were nevertheless organized in ways that could be called familial. the abolition of private property. but also often lived with their pupils in order to impose some kind of order on their daily lives. also proposed such innovations as the abolition of marriage and private property and the formation of communal systems in which all the members engaged. such as the Waldensians. who lived in communities called colleges (in Latin. Masters not only taught bachelors (in Latin. Later forms of Christianity that deviated from the orthodox view. baccalaurei). collegia). the responsibilities of the masters were very like those of fathers in the Middle Ages. such as the Cathars or Albigensians. Indeed. The structure of the university was perhaps more complex than that of a merchant guild. although perhaps less obvious in their family-based structures than monasteries and nunneries. that proposed different ways of living in families and other kinds of communal groups. the term universitas. any deviation from the norms of family life were usually condemned as well. literally associations of so-called brothers who engaged in acts of patronage. The guilds themselves. These were not fully accepted forms of religious expression and. the journeymen and apprentices under them were clearly categorized as professional children of the masters. from which the name university comes. completely rejected
. guilds operated as confraternities. Other groups. in sponsoring religious festivals. guilds operated in a sense as marriage brokers for their members. Alternative Models of Families in the Medieval West: The Spiritual Family Throughout the medieval period the standard family models were challenged by alternatives. Although the members of the guild who had attained master status might be considered more or less equals. and the adoption of communal living. While this probably resembled a modern-day boarding school arrangement more than a modern-day family. Nevertheless. as such. Finally. Beguines and the Brethren of the Common Life were late medieval religious communities that rejected both traditional family and traditional monastic structures. In the late antique period (the second through fourth centuries) a form of Christianity called Montanism proposed an end to marriage. but the educational program was overseen by a structure that was family-oriented. is merely the Latin term for a guild.

Waldensian preachers—including women—traveled from town to town to meet with co-religionists in secret. and the institutions of conventional Christianity. who had been an Augustinian nun. the church authorities did not approve. and the taking of oaths. but also to the civil authorities. in the early years of the thirteenth century. might leave the community and return again—or never return—without penalty.5 What is clear is that the women who joined the Beguine movement rejected traditional medieval notions of family and convent in favor of a somewhat pragmatic alternative: the creation of female-only communities that operated independently of any central authority and that did not require permanent enclosure of any member. led the church to condemn the movement. rather than a family dominated by a mother. especially by the church. the existence of purgatory. Peter preached against the amassing of wealth. They were therefore declared heretical and violently suppressed by the religious and civil authorities. Eventually. Beguine communities appeared in urban areas. and operated by consensus. They were residences for women that emphasized work and prayer. This was a direct challenge not only to the dominant church. the obligations inherent in the sacraments. a region of medieval France that is now part of Belgium. or by the first woman associated with the group. such as the superiority of priests. Mary of Oignies. Beguines resisted church authority and persisted in presenting a female-specific
. coupled with the belief among Beguines that women were capable of achieving spiritual enlightenment without the control or oversight of males.218
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the norms of medieval society. one that the church suppressed with considerable violence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Historians generally agree that a French merchant named Peter Waldo founded the Waldensian movement in the last quarter of the twelfth century. They condemned many traditions of the Catholic church. advocated a more communal lifestyle with a significantly decreased emphasis on private property. the prominence of the family. Peter’s movement was declared heretical initially not because his theology ran counter to orthodoxy. lived communally. One of the most revolutionary aspects of the movement was its ability to absorb women who. This might have been something of a spontaneous movement begun perhaps by a priest named Lambert le Begue. Followers. Although his message was quite similar to that of his contemporary Francis of Assisi. for various reasons. and promoted a life of absolute simplicity and restraint. the Waldensians formed an alternative to traditional Catholic Christianity. although they lived in traditional family units. The Beguine movement seems to have begun in Brabant. This was a movement of religious sisters. who preached that women should live a spiritually active life. but because Peter disobeyed the church’s demand that he stop preaching and conform to the official teachings of the church. Members of each beguinage pooled their resources. This fluidity and flexibility.

however. the church clamped down hard. the taking of multiple partners. until released through purification. Possibly the most violently attacked alternative to orthodox Christianity in the Middle Ages was the group called the Cathars or the Albigensians (named after the town of Albi in southern France. is connected to the soul. Beguinages were forcibly disbanded and. Cathars who were near death could choose to purify themselves by refusing to eat. chastity. founded in the mid-fourteenth century by the Dutch theologian Geert Groote. brother. Marguerite Porete. for this reason. where the movement allegedly began). was burned at the stake as a heretic. the great sixteenth-century reformist theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam received his early education at a Brethren school. one of the great mystical philosophers of the movement. father. sister—were common not only among traditional religious groups but also among non-traditional groups. the ideal of replacing one’s earthly family with a spiritual one probably resonated more among groups opposed to the traditional structures of the church than among those that were a part of it. This was thought to both discipline the corrupt body and free the pure soul from the earthly chains binding it. that Jesus and Satan were brothers. and so on. although they ate fish and some kinds of dairy products. Indeed. but they did not take vows of poverty. The perfecti also abstained from sexual intercourse and practiced fairly strict forms of self-discipline. and Luxembourg). The principles espoused by both the Waldensians and the Beguines— that individuals are capable of spiritual growth through prayer and individual effort—finally found grudging acceptance in the Catholic Church with the Brethren of the Common Life. As a result. and that God. divorce. which is trapped inside the corrupting body. in 1310. since all forms of sexual activity
. The Cathars were dualists: they believed that the world and all that is contained therein were created by an evil being. They maintained fairly strict bans on eating nearly all kinds of meat. who embodies perfect goodness. the rhetorical use of family connections in medieval Christianity— mother. The Netherlands.The Family as Rhetorical Device
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spiritual vision. they were tolerated by the church. and obedience like conventional monks and nuns. Cathars could theoretically be free to engage in activities that the orthodox authorities viewed as sinful: sex outside the confines of marriage. Homosexuality was not banned. They devoted their lives to prayer and to education. Thus. Until death. The leaders of the movement were called perfecti (the singular form is perfectus). the Brethren were theologically orthodox and. since the body and the world were considered already to be corrupt. The Brethren—including women—were organized in more traditional monastic fashion. Indeed. because they believed that mammals also had souls and possibly that souls transmigrated from one body to another at death. Although dedicated to extreme simplicity. specifically of lay boys and girls in the cities of the medieval Low Countries (modern-day Belgium. either.

Indeed. toward sexuality. and punished. The Cathar ideal of perfection thus in no way conformed to orthodox belief. interrogated.220
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were thought to be equally corrupt—an idea that was not uncommon in medieval orthodox Christianity as well. tended not to differentiate between compliant and dissident family members. not only did this tear families apart. not only on individuals in a given family. but some systems rejected these categories outright and advocated everything from complete abstinence to rejecting the traditional family to raising children communally. and toward children. Gnosticism and a dualist worldview influenced orthodox Christianity in many ways. Augustine of Hippo was influenced by his early interest in Manicheeism. The Gospel of John and the Book of Revelations are so-called moderate Gnostic texts. Not only were traditional family systems encouraged to conform to different attitudes toward their structure. and forms of Christianity known generally as Gnosticism that were declared heretical in the first few centuries of the religion’s existence. Nevertheless. The impact of unorthodox or heretical religions movements on family life in the medieval west could be significant. As such. it was condemned by the authorities—the papacy and the kings of France. invented by Pope Innocent III in 1215 to combat Catharism. People who were excommunicated by the church were supposed to be shunned by the entire community. Marriage was discouraged and birth control might have been encouraged. This was a very different view of family from that of the orthodox church. when some family members converted to a form of Christianity that had been condemned as heretical by church authorities. The dualist world view has a very long history. in order to prevent procreation. but also on that family’s very survival. in that all non-procreative sexual activity was considered sinful in varying degrees. it was hard to eradicate these ideas and it took more than a hundred years to wipe out the Cathars in southern France. as Catharism did in southern France and the Pyrenees region between France and Spain. such as that of the Manichees in late Roman North Africa.6 The Cathars might represent an extremely unorthodox perspective on both the world and family life. The office of the Holy Inquisition. heretic and orthodox alike. and the theology of St. religions contemporary with early Christianity. which promoted the creation of families as both the only way to engage in legal sexual behavior and the only way to produce legitimate children. with members moving in and out of them at will. In addition. imprisoned. but they were not unique in their beliefs. including family members. especially in areas where alternative forms of Christianity became popular. Families were considered fluid. All people associated with an heretical group were rounded up. The religious authorities usually received support from the institutions
. beginning with preChristian religions such as Zoroastrianism. but it could endanger everyone. where most of the Cathars were living. This could also have significant repercussions.

Homosexuality. sources are more likely to emphasize simple cultural differences between. did so in a vacuum: no sources are
. In addition. Neither group felt it could afford to tolerate such differences because the authoritarian nature of both medieval Christianity and the monarchic political systems in Europe depended upon ingrained demands of absolute obedience. and Muslims imagined that Christian women were just as sexually promiscuous as Christians imagined Muslim women confined to a harem must be. such behavior meant that Christian men did not have sufficient control of their wives. say. thought that the mixing of the sexes in Christian households. In fact. Thus. the Muslim perception was just as inaccurate as that of the Christian. the Christian image of the seraglio as a place in which decadent acts of sexual promiscuity ran rampant did not provide an accurate picture of the Muslim polygamous household. Unusual Family Arrangements in the Byzantine. for instance. as being bizarre and unnatural rather than identify truly unusual family arrangements within a given culture. Finally. especially differences that influenced lifestyle and social interaction. These simply do not exist for most of the medieval world. and Jewish Cultures of the Middle Ages If the sources for unorthodox family arrangements are thin for the medieval West. Of course. they are more or less nonexistent for the rest of the medieval world. was condemned by Islam as it was by Christianity. which was far more staid and conventional than Christians imagined it to be. although few were probably exclusively homosexual since all men in Muslim culture were expected to be married. the rhetoric of the family was so strong in all the medieval cultures and within all the religious systems that the authorities would have been careful to erase irregularities from the records and to insist that people who were worthy to be included in the historical record operated well within the bounds of legally mandated behavior. Muslim. Islamic culture. To them. if they existed. even though there is ample evidence that homosexuality existed in both cultures. Christians and Muslims. Certainly same-sex partnered households. Medieval Islam was just as authoritarian as medieval Christianity and just as intolerant of difference. Muslims. although informal and ad hoc living arrangements had to have been common in all regions of the medieval world and among all social classes. where respectable women could meet and talk to men to whom they were not related. was considered by Christians to be highly irregular as to its family arrangements. since it did not have any bias against polygamy. was downright bizarre and even unsavory. for their part. Some men engaged in samesex activity. it is impossible to reconstruct them without sources that make reference to them.The Family as Rhetorical Device
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of the civil authorities in wiping out religion-based alternatives to the dominant culture.

Jews refused to recognize same-sex relationships as legitimate. Although the levirate marriage was very rarely invoked in medieval Jewish culture. however. Jews in the Middle Ages thought the Christian emphasis on chastity was bizarre. Jewish communities. Jewish communities also valued marriage to the exclusion of any other arrangement. Although chronicles did sometimes record the marital abnormalities of emperors desperate for heirs. especially when faced with persecution and want. On the other hand. Judaic law. where individuals could form more or less permanent communities dedicated to prayer. Indeed. Sources for people below the level of the Byzantine aristocracy are scarce indeed. such as the marriage of first cousins. the legal establishment of alternatives to the conventional Muslim family simply did not exist. already included arrangements that Christians would have found strange. In the Byzantine world. Sufi orders did not operate in the same way. which was very common in the Middle East. The dominance of the family unit as the basis of the society was simply far too important to allow for alternatives. however. either. so there is no way to know what kinds of unusual family arrangements might have appeared in times of crisis or among specific groups or communities. Men who did not marry were criticized for their anti-social behavior and women who were unmarried were condemned to a subordinate status in the households of their families. Islam did not even provide an alternative similar to the Christian monastery. The kinds of alternatives that existed among western Christian heretical groups such as the Cathars and the Beguines did not exist in the east. community authorities would have been careful to inspect the potential groom for evidence that he was interested in the welfare of his bereaved sister-in-law and not solely in the monetary and property that the levirate marriage would have brought. Byzantine heretical belief systems were far more theologically oriented
. This did not mean. these were not necessarily illegal or illicit arrangements and chroniclers might include them just in order to present their subjects in a negative light. Muslims were expected to be married. evidence for unorthodox marriage arrangements is virtually nonexistent. Thus. might have made some unusual arrangements in order to reinforce a family in danger of extinction. that they tolerated overt homosexuality: like Christian and Muslim society. such an arrangement would not have been considered absolutely extraordinary. In addition. it is almost impossible to identify relationships that did not follow traditional family structure. even more than in the Christian west. even though they certainly must have existed.222
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available to suggest how such a family would operate in the climate of intolerance and hostility with which it would have been met. and the tradition of the levirate marriage in which a widow marries the brother of her late husband in order to provide an heir for the dead man.

for instance. and whether Jesus was fully human before he became fully God. Byzantine Christianity shared with western Christianity the idea of the monastery as the standard alternative to a more typical family life. While this probably promoted the monastery and convent as real alternatives to the conventional family. the period of the Black Death. Chronicles describing the Black Death claim that parents abandoned children. The persistence of medieval family structures and their resistance to significant change is not just a phenomenon of traditional cultures.The Family as Rhetorical Device
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than socially oriented. The breakdown of the social order during the epidemic must have been severe. so we will never know what they might have been. Byzantine monasteries. traditional family structures reasserted themselves. In the cramped and overcrowded medieval cities. were much farther removed from the center of the social culture than they were in the west. in their fear of the contagion. In the middle years of the fourteenth century. but it was not permanent. a group of unrelated aristocrats flee Florence in the wake of the plague’s arrival and live together in a country villa. for instance. they were far less intimately connected to the families of their patrons and they were far more focused on separating their members from all family associations. In addition. the combination of mass panic and the horrific mortality rate must have prompted many people to alter their living arrangements. The fact that family structures to this day resemble those of medieval people is a testament to their enduring power. Even though the Cathars. Thus. In Boccacio’s The Decameron. gained converts as far from their origins in France as Bosnia. as discussed in chapter 9. Conclusion It is entirely likely that medieval people everywhere made family arrangements that were untraditional when circumstances made such arrangements necessary. the highly controlled monastic system worked against such loose and flexible arrangements as those found in the Beguine communities. Byzantine Christians argued about whether the three elements of the Trinity were coequal. such social heresies did not reach the Byzantine east. but did not contain openings for unorthodox alternatives that western Christianity seems to have offered. and children abandoned their parents. It is also likely that most of these arrangements were never recorded by the authorities.
. While many were located in and around cities. even when outbreaks of plague returned every 7 to 11 years. people undoubtedly did strategize in their domestic arrangements for their comfort and survival in ways that would have been frowned upon by the church or the Islamic authorities. not about the efficacy of the sacraments or whether priestly blessings were necessary for salvation. Once the danger had more or less passed.

html for a good overview of the movement. trans.” http://www. 607–639. 6. Chickering. Also.fordham. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.ord/wiki/sufism. and less controversial book on the Cathars is Malcom Barber. 399. A more recent. History of the Franks. 1974). see Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie.html. See http:// en. 2.224
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Notes
1. see the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
. A recent and comprehensive history of the Beguines is Walter Simons. Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries 1200–1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.skoutariotes1. 1977).sfsu.15.source.edu/halsall. Howell D. 4.wikipedia. Abby Stoner. “Sisters Between: Gender and the Medieval Beguines. Jr.edu/˜eknuth/xpxx/beguines. 2000). For Skoutariotes.edu˜epf/1995/beguine. csbsju. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (New York: Vintage Books. See the essay by Elizabeth T. “The Beguines.fordham. if controversial. Knuth.html.users. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages (London: Longman.edu/halsall/basis/pselluschronographia. 3. ll. Beowulf. “Chronographia. depiction of the Cathars. Gregory of Tours.” http://userwww.” http://www. “From the Synopsis Chronika: The Emperors of the 11th Century. For examples of their work.html. The Wikipedia article on Sufism is particularly detailed. trans. For Psellus. 85. 2003).” http://www. 5. VII. 1979). For an interesting. (Garden City: Anchor Press.

Bailey: in castle architecture. Curtain wall: the wall of a castle that is intersected by towers. but that is not a permanent marriage. referring to the blood relationship of close kin who are forbidden to marry. this was an administrative unit of the imperial government. in which one finds the keep and other buildings.” this is the French term for “keep” (see below). Consanguinity/consanguineous: in medieval Christianity. Concubine/concubinage: a woman or a relationship with a woman that is considered to be legal. In the Middle Ages.Glossary
Al-Andalus: the Arabic name for the Islamic region of Spain ruled by the caliphate of Cordoba. the courtyard enclosed by the main wall. the land the lord retains for his own income and to produce the grain he and his family consumes. Diocese: in the Roman period. this was the administrative unit of the Christian church. Bride price: the goods and money a potential groom had to pay the potential bride and her family in medieval Germanic culture.
. Common law: the law of the English kingdom after the Norman Conquest. Donjon: the origin of the word “dungeon. Barbican: the main defensive structures of the outer wall of a castle. Canon law: the law of the church. Civil Law: refers specifically to Roman law. Domus: the Latin term for both house and household. over which a bishop presided. Demesne: in medieval manorialism.

his successors. Germanic: referring to the German-speaking Indo-Europeans who migrated into the Roman Empire beginning in the second century c. military.
. the property the groom grants the bride in the event he dies before her. Gyneceum/gynakaia: the Byzantine term used for the women’s quarters in a home or palace. Endogamy/endogamous: referring to marriage within the kinship or community unit. the storage areas. the basic unit of economic production and training. Fief: the grant—in land. Apprentices eventually could become journeymen and. these are professionals who interpret legal judgments. and the performance of other feudal obligations known as dues. Exogamy/exogamous: referring to marriage outside the kinship or community unit. Eunuch: a castrated male. but still form a main component to the holy texts of Islam. as in the Quranic texts. sometimes. donjon. Dowry: in most cultures. and other rooms for administrative. Guilds were run by designated masters who trained apprentices in their craft.” Geniza: the storage warehouse for Jewish Torah scrolls and other sacred texts. and established independent kingdoms there and in what is now Germany.e. and his family that are not considered sacred. moveable property or both—made by a lord to a vassal in exchange for his or her oaths of homage and fealty (loyalty). or domestic use. Hadith: the Islamic collection of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. the religious movement to ban the worship of religious images that was dominant in the ninth century. the smashing of icons. In Byzantine culture. In Islamic law. Feudalism: the political and military system of the European Middle Ages in which a lord provides a fief to a free person in exchange for oaths of homage and fealty (loyalty). this is referred to as dowry.226
Glossary
Dowager: a widow who has received her dower and is independent of male control. Guild: in the Middle Ages. Iconoclasm: literally. which was also used to house family archives. the main building in a medieval castle. which usually not only housed the domestic apartments of the lord and lady. Dower: in most cultures. the property the bride brings to the wedding. Latifundium/latifundia: the Roman plantation system in which the land is worked by slaves and owned by an absentee landlord. military service. but which was overturned. masters themselves. Keep: also. but also the Great Hall. Jurists: in Roman law. Garderobe: a medieval latrine and the origin of the English term “wardrobe. The main geniza of Cairo was found in the 1890s and forms a significant source for Jewish family life in the Middle Ages.

Called dowry on the Continent.Glossary
227
Levirate marriage: in Judaism. in Roman law. the property a bride brought to the marriage. Patriarchal: refers to a system in which some adult men of elite status rule over lower-status men. and established a kingdom and several other states throughout Italy. the economic system of land and labor exploitation in which a lord’s manor is worked by serfs or villeins. who receive land and dwellings in exchange. and in which
. the male head of the household who has supreme power over all members of the household. all women. Ostrogoths: a Germanic group that invaded the Roman Empire in the fifth century and established a kingdom in Italy Partible inheritance: a system of inheritance in which all. Morning gift/morgengab: in medieval Germanic culture. The term means “hand. Mund/mundium: in Germanic law. which is controlled either by him or. Patria potestas: a Latin term referring to the authority fathers had over their households. in the case of women. Lineage: the family line. of the children inherit portions of an estate. Maritagium: in English law. Municipia: the Roman term for an administrative center in an imperial province. Also referred to as emancipation. Paternalistic: referring to the definition of a political leader or a political system as being father-like. the freeing of children from paternal authority [see patria potestas]. Paterfamilias: in Roman culture. Also provided the origins of the name for the Italian region called Lombardy. Manorialism: in medieval Europe. made of wood or stone. the practice of a childless widow marrying her late husband’s brother in order to provide the dead man with an heir. two different kinds of marriage. and all children. Lombards: a Germanic group that invaded the Roman Empire around 600 c. the gift granted to the wife by the husband on the morning after the wedding. a projection from a wall. Manus/sine manu: in Roman law. through which defenders could pour nasty things onto the heads of an invading force.e. by some other male. Manumission: the freeing of a slave from servitude or. or at least some. the legal personhood of an individual. Matrilineal: a system whereby the lines of descent are considered to run through the mother’s family line.” and refers to the status of the bride at marriage: whether she is handed over to her husband’s family or if her so-called hand remains with that of her natal family. Machicolation: in architecture. Natal: referring to the family of one’s birth.

currently. Umma: the community of believers in Islam. Polygyny: the marriage of a man to more than one woman at the same time. Serf: also known as a villein. such as a man having several wives or a woman having several husbands. on which the diners reclined. a peasant in the manorial system who is personally free but tied to the land he or she must work for the lord. This is the dominant social system of the world both historically and. Patrilineal: a family structure in which the main lines of descent are considered to pass primarily down the father’s family line. the value placed upon a person’s life and limb.
. the group of men who formed the private military and administrative force of a chieftain. the practice of usury was forbidden by the Roman Church. Polygamy: the taking in marriage of more than one person. Sharia: the system of Islamic law based on the Quran and Hadith that is overseen by Islamic judges called qadis. referring to the three couches built into the wall. Vandals: a Germanic group that invaded the Roman Empire in the fifth century and established a kingdom in North Africa. Usury: the lending of money at excessive interest. Peristyle house: a common type of house in the Roman and Byzantine empires in which rooms were arranged around an interior central courtyard. in many places. Villein: see “serf. which had a covered walkway.228
Glossary
all men are given legal dominance over women and children. War band: in medieval Germanic culture. Triclinium: the dining room of a Greek or Byzantine house. In the Middle Ages.” Visigoths: a Germanic group that invaded the Roman Empire in the fifth century and established a kingdom in Spain. Vassal: a free man or woman who swears oaths of homage and fealty (loyalty) to a lord in exchange for a fief. Quran: the holy scriptures of the Islamic faith. or “peristyle” surrounding it. Primogeniture: the system whereby the eldest son inherits most or all of his father’s estate. Wergeld: in Germanic law.

Tania. Michael. and other others. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Halsall.fordham. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. The more technical or specialized sources referred to in the chapters of this book can be found in the notes for each chapter. 1998. and so can provide useful tools for the person interested in reading more about the medieval world in general and medieval families in particular. Deno John. 1991. Geanokoplos. Byzantium: Church. and ed. heretics. and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes.html This massive compendium of primary sources for the Middle Ages includes links to other source collections edited by Halsall.Bibliography and Recommended Further Reading
The texts listed in this bibliography are mentioned specifically because they are accessible to the general reader. http://www. Other Middle Ages: Witnesses at the Margins of Medieval Society. trans. Goodich. This abridged version of the manual of the man known as the menagier (or “goodman”) of Paris to his young wife provides the reader with valuable information on the medieval household in later medieval Europe. Society. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook. ed.
Primary Sources and Source Collections
Bayard. ed. A Medieval Home Companion: Housekeeping in the Fourteenth Century.
. Paul. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. dissidents. 1984. A collection of sources focusing on the populations not typically covered by source collections: Jews. Virtually the only sourcebook available to general readers interested in the history of the Byzantine Empire.edu/ halsall/sbook.

However.
General Works on Medieval Women Family history is often embedded in women’s history. Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Volume II: Revelations of the Medieval World. A detailed overview especially of the material life of medieval people. women’s history sources. trans. Veyne. This text gives equal time to all the medieval cultures. This is the classic work by one of the most notable scholars on the history of Islamic women. Clifford R. unlike most general textbooks. Arthur Goldhammer. Derek. A classic collection of essays. Cambridge. Leila. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. with only occasional references to the Islamic. Baker. and Jewish cultures of the Middle Ages.230
Bibliography and Recommended Further Reading such as the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook and sources compiled on specific topics: Byzantine sources. This second volume of a multi-volume series provides an overview of private life mostly in Christian western Europe. Byzantine. This is the most comprehensive portal for medieval sources to exist on the Internet.
Backman. NC: McFarland and Company. trans. MA: Harvard University Press. Approximately the first half of the book focuses on pre-modern Islam and the position of women in Islamic religion and culture. Reprint. which has been substantially overturned by more recent historical work. and so on. series editors. This first volume of a multi-volume series provides a somewhat uneven overview. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby. this is still a useful introduction to the private life of ancient and Byzantine people. Islamic sources. so books dealing specifically with women are often useful for gaining information on family life. Volume 1: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Medieval Women. Jefferson. New Haven: Yale University Press. The Worlds of Medieval Europe. The volume suffers to some extent from the dominance of Georges Duby’s perspective on the position of women. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge. Paul. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby. ed. Paul B.
. MA: Harvard University Press.
Ahmed. 1992. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. series editors. 2003. but it is a useful introduction to the issues of private space and family life in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 2001.
General Works on Medieval History Most general works focus on western Europe. Newman. mostly focusing on women in a religious context. 1978. A History of Private Life. Georges. ed. Although some specific issues and conclusions (such as the isolation of women in the Byzantine period) have been significantly debated by many historians. the following books are good starting points for information on medieval people. 1987. ed. 2003. A History of Private Life. Duby.

A collection of essays for the general reader. 1999. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. this new study does incorporate new research on social and family issues. The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits 1250–1500. Second Edition. New York: Garland Books.
Ancient Rome
Bradley. Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe. Labarge. London: Longman. Keith R. that focuses not only on western European (despite the title) but also Byzantine. part of Longman’s “The Medieval World” series. 2005. 1992. 1988. introduces the historical issues surrounding the lives of aristocratic women— and thereby of aristocratic family life—in late medieval England. each written by a different expert in the field. Mitchell. New York: Oxford University Press. Women in Medieval Western European Culture. ed. Islamic. Boston: Beacon Press. Linda E. 1994.. ed. This book. A collection of essays that covers a wide range of widows’ experience and their depiction in medieval literature. 1991. 1992. Mirrer. 1999.
. This collection of case studies identifies a number of specific issues concerning Roman families. The Roman Family. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. with a concluding essay that serves as both a general overview and an expansion on the previous essays.Bibliography and Recommended Further Reading
231
Baskin. The Small Sound of a Trumpet: Women in Medieval Life. Jewish Women in Historical Perspective. Suzanne. This collection of brief biographies of elite and imperial women focuses on the public activities of these notable figures. Theodore. Judith R. Margaret Wade. Four essays on Jewish women in late antiquity and the Middle Ages are very useful for general understanding of the role of women in Judaic culture. This collection of essays is accessible to the general reader. and Jewish women. This text is virtually the only modern synthesis of the Roman family designed for the non-specialist.. English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages. Dixon. A History of Byzantium. like all general works on Byzantine culture. Jennifer C. Aristocratic Women in Medieval France. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. and discusses noble women in the context of their families. Ward. 1999. ed. Nicol. Donald M. Evergates. Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History. 1992.
The Byzantine Empire
Gregory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ed. Louise. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. by looking at the family of the philosopher Cicero. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Although focused mostly on political history. Timothy F. An excellent general survey of the history of women in medieval Europe. although there is a strong focus on women’s experiences in northern Europe (England and France) and less attention paid to the Mediterranean world.

1958. Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire. 1994. S. New York: Greenwood Press. and the ways in which those cultures interacted with the Jewish populations living in them. the Family. from the sixteenth century—the introduction and the first essay. New York: Meridian Books. Berkeley: University of California Press. Revised and edited by Jacob Lassner. Sonbol. Mark R. CT: Greenwood Press. New York: Greenwood Press.” by Barbara Freyer Stowasser.
The Islamic World
Lindsay. Although the majority of the essays in this collection focus on the post-Ottoman Islamic world—that is. James E. Kenneth R. Although the references to family life are minimal—and located in a section entitled “Curious and Entertaining Information”—this is a useful introduction to the medieval Islamic world. Cambridge. ed. Israel. D. This text. is a good recent study of medieval Jewish culture in the Christian west. is quite outdated with respect to the use of sources. Marcus. 2006. Norman. This general study of medieval Islamic society is more or less the only text of its kind: one that provides the general reader with information on medieval Muslim culture that is usually available only to specialists. 1992. Goitein. it is a good general overview of the ways in which Jews interacted in the dominant cultures of the Middle Ages. Stow.
. The only overview of Byzantine society available for the general reader. 2005. A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgment in One Volume. Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe. Although there is very little information on the Jewish family to be found in this text. This general study. designed for the general reader. Women. are useful as introductions to issues pertaining to Muslim women and families. NY: Syracuse University Press. Syracuse. 2005. 1999.
Medieval Jewish Culture
Abrahams. Westport. Roth. Cohen. Amira El Azhary. Jewish Life in the Middle Ages. is useful especially in its descriptions of the material and economic cultures of medieval Jews. Princeton: Princeton University Press. MA: Harvard University Press.232
Bibliography and Recommended Further Reading
Rautman. Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages. Although this text. Daily Life of the Jews in the Middle Ages. This is a very useful abridgment of the massive multi-volume work on Jewish life in medieval Egypt and the southern Mediterranean. and Divorce Laws in Islamic History. which makes use of new research especially on Jews living in the Rhineland. “Women and Citizenship in the Qur’an. it is important as the first general history of medieval Jewish life that used the then recently discovered geniza records. which was originally published around the year 1900. based upon Goitein’s extensive study of the geniza records. this very recent text by a noted archaeologist focuses not only on textual sources but material remains as well. 1996. Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World.

Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching. and Children.
. Household. The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. One of the books that revolutionized the study of peasant families.Bibliography and Recommended Further Reading
233
Western Europe
Fleming. 2001.” that identify how specific people died. Peter. Barbara A. A short and general study of family life in England in the high and late Middle Ages. is an excellent road map into the essays themselves and into the field of medieval family history. 1986. this text is based upon a detailed study of the records of coroners. Carol. called “coroner’s inquests. Hanawalt. 2004. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. Medieval Families: Perspectives on Marriage. Family and Household in Medieval England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. This collection of previously published essays compiles many of the classic works that introduced the study of the medieval family about twenty years ago. The introduction. Marriage. by the editor. in order to understand how medieval peasant families lived. ed. Mitchell. Neel. Portraits of Medieval Women: Family. New York: Oxford University Press. 2003. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Linda E. This series of case studies of aristocratic women and families focuses on specific aspects of women’s lives and how they intersected with both the family culture and the political culture in the English kingdom. and Politics in England 1225–1350.

MITCHELL is Associate Professor of History at Alfred University. 1997).
.About the Author LINDA E. She contributed to Events that Changed the World in the Eighteenth Century (Greenwood. She is Hagar Professor of Humanities and Co-chair. Medieval & Renaissance Studies.